Scavenger
by A51
Summary: There is a treasure trove left within the destructive wake of the war for the Frontier. All it takes is a brave, or crazy soul to be willing to face the potential danger for a chance at wealth, and maybe, a better Frontier.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey this is a sequel to my previous story, Titanfall: New Frontiers, a mature rated story that ends where this story picks up, give it a read if you haven't. I'll try to improve my writing as best I can over the course of this story so feedback would be appreciated, thanks for reading!**

In the animal kingdom, the world was split into two categories: predators and prey. And of those two classes there was another sect, reserved for the fiercest, most ruthless and efficient killers. They were the best, able to take down anything that came across them, predator—or prey. They were labeled as apex predators, and much like their animal counterparts, the brand of mercenaries with the same moniker were just as deadly, just as ruthless. The Apex Predators were the best, but being the best came at a price. The Apex Predators were the most expensive freelance mercenary company in the Frontier. If you had the budget and failure was not an option, you called the Apex Predators.

The Apex Predators drew its strength from the pilots under its employ. Kuben Blisk only scouted the most ruthless, talented and tenacious of pilots. This lead to each of his pilots—already worth dozens of normal men—to be worth several pilots. One Apex Predator was capable of taking down whole squads of Pilots.

This was something this pilot had demonstrated, providing the Frontier Militia's forces with a firsthand experience of the lethality of an Apex Predator. He had already carved a brutal, bloody path through their forces. At this point he had gone from completing his objective, preventing the Militia from extracting and was now ruthlessly hunting his prey as they made futile attempts to regroup.

He had earned a title from his cold efficiency. The Militia had named him rather fittingly, "Wraith" because most of his victims only saw him briefly before they never saw anything ever again. He actually had a bounty on his head, a hefty thirty-five thousand credits. Not like anyone would actually be able to claim that sum of money. Many of those he came across died or fled escaping death within an inch of their life. Every time he would see the enemy scramble, their mind struggling to process mixed reactions to run or fight had cause a blank, soulless grin to spread across his face.

This was a reaction that was displayed again as he burst through a wall of dust and sand into a shaded alcove along a cliff face. The militia trying to hide from the IMC and their mercenaries and the weather scrambling about before starting to panic as the pilot activated his Emergency Cloaking System. As the man flickered out of sight he tossed a frag grenade from his belt into a cluster of Militia riflemen towards the rear of the alcove. The spherical object bounced once, skittered a few feet along the ground then detonated in a vibrant cloud of smoke fire and death. The militia forces that were spared the quick death were then engaged in hand to hand combat.

The pilot disengaged his cloak right as he neared a stunned grunt. As the man's face erupted into one of horror, he was struck with several lightning fast blows. Several punches, hard enough to break bones were delivered in a rapid series of four punches, caving the man's chest cavity as a final punch crushed his windpipe. As the grunt gurgled in a dying heap to the ground the pilot was already upon his next target. Transitioning to a boosted slide, he ducked under reactionary fire to rise into a shoulder check to his newest target. His knife was a quick series of strikes, blindingly fast into the soft points around the rifleman's torso, as the man slumped over, Wraith flicked his wrist, flinging his knife, which doubled as a pulse radar, striking another man in the bridge of his nose. Predictably the man went rigid before teetering over backwards. However, before this man had even hit the ground, Wraith had already ripped his sidearm from his chest to fire at the two remaining militia grunts who were shooting back at him. Most of their rounds eating into the corpse of their ally as it shielded the pilot. Three rounds later and the room was silent, save for a final shifting and thud of a corpse being dropped to the ground.

The entire encounter had elapsed within the span of fifteen seconds. Rolling his shoulders with a sigh of minor exhaustion he stooped down to retrieve his pulse blade. The knife was sunken about halfway into the Militia rifleman's face. The bridge of his nose was broken and sunken in. Blood had foamed up around the wound, and as he yanked his knife out, he drew contrails of a viscous mixture of pus, mucus and blood. Silently, he wiped the blade off on the corpse's uniform before stowing it in its sheath.

Looking outside to the dust storm rolling across the land, he let out a silent huff of breath. Nature would always have its way over its domain, and while the storm alone was nothing that worried him he was still put off of the idea of traversing arid landscape within a storm. Regardless he had a job to do. Reaching into a grab sack on his thigh he pulled out a small beacon. Activating the spherical device, he chucked it over his shoulder before running headlong into the storm. His silhouette was quickly lost within the dust as he faded back into obscurity.

Kuben Blisk had ordered his mercenaries back after all Militia forces were either destroyed or had fled the area. As each pilot or grunt checked back in with him they received the remainder of their pay. Blisk had always offered a small portion up front. This allowed for his freelancers to see that they were in fact going to be paid. The pay was always good, but sometimes people didn't believe what they were being offered until they saw it. Distributing money this way also allowed Blisk to keep whatever was leftover from those who had died and were unable to collect their pay. Of course there were exceptions, in the event that a mercenary had requested that their pay be forwarded to their family or somewhere else in the event of their death. Realistically though, few took that course, no one went into combat expecting that they wouldn't be coming back.

"Another mission complete, eh?" Blisk smiled, voice thick with his signature south african accent. "You sure you don't want a more permanent setup? There would be a raise in it for you." He offered.

"No, thank you." Wraith grunted, voice coming out over his helmet in a modulated, gruff voice, slightly raspy due to the radio that broadcast his voice through his external speakers. "I'll be around, Blisk…" He nodded, seeing his account update with the remained of his pay.

"Ah, well, offer stands mate." He grinned, patting the man on the back as he walked past. "Need a ride back?" Blisk asked as he turned to look over his shoulder.

"I've got it." Wraith shook his head. "Thanks though." Walking away from the ship and down to what remained of the battlefield he shifted his gear, looking up to the sky. The sky was starting to take on a orange, dusky hue, evening was beginning to start, giving him plenty of time to get his regular routine done.

About an hour had passed, he had already swept through the area, collecting a nice haul of gear. He had stripped any corpses of their equipment, ballistic vests, pilot harnesses, ammunition, weapons, helmets and uniforms. He had made a nice pile, calling down his personal dropship, a heavily modified Goblin, to pick up his findings. He had found it at a salvage yard, since its purchase he had upgraded nearly everything on the ship. It had larger, more powerful engines, thicker armor, a larger cargo hold, spacious enough to hold a Titan and a few soldiers. It featured weapons and upgrades to the life support and warp system. As the ship dusted down, blowing up a storm of dust and dirt as it touched down, one of his Titans, a side project, had stomped its way off of the dropship.

The Titan lacked any kind of advanced Artificial Intelligence or Operating System. It was able to take orders, which was all that mattered at the moment. Motioning to the small mountain of equipment he ordered, "Put that on the ship."

The Titan complied silently, stomping over the pile and taking large handfuls of the pile before retracing its steps back onto the ship, depositing the gear before walking back out and repeating its actions. He watched this for a moment before he went back to his previous task of scouring the dead. Spotting a building in the distance.

As he entered the small building, various pipes and machines lining the walls—their purpose unknown and unimportant—he spotted a destroyed Reaper-class Spectre and the hole it left in the ceiling. Unclasping one of the weapons on his back, a modified Devotion he edged towards the downed machine. As he got closer, within the improvised spotlight cast by the hole in the ceiling, he noticed the severely damaged internals. The middle column of the machine melted away by what looked like thermite. "Firestar…" He muttered as he noticed the hastily painted on insignia of the MCOR. He cursed silently. He would have to wipe the AI or heavily rewrite it. Regardless the machines were valuable. Selling this would turn a pretty decent profit, or he could keep it. Nobody would want to face down a man with a Reaper as his bodyguard. Checking his Titan's progress he looked out the building to see the machine standing still, idling. He ordered the machine over and waited.

The machine lumbered over rather quickly, the Titan's massive stature allowing it to cross large stretches of land quickly. As the machine ground to a halt he ordered the hatch to open and climbed inside. Shifting about in the seat as he settled in he moved the Titan to crouch down and place its massive hands within the doorframe. A short tug later and a large portion of the wall broke away. He repeated the process until he was able to reach the Reaper. Clasping his Titan's hands upon the machine he dragged it off towards the ship. A moment of awkward shuffling and maneuvering he was able to secure both his Titan and newly acquired Reaper. He climbed into the cockpit. Thumbing through various switches he powered up the machine, grinning as the engines whined to life. As he pushed the throttle forward the whine of the engines turned to a roar as the thruster wash kicked up another storm of debris.

He pulled up his map, finding his beacon he placed earlier and piloting the ship to the pulsing locator. As the ship touched down he repeated his well practiced routine. He picked through the dead, leaving them in their underwear, collecting their bloodstained gear and weapons. He checked and cleared the weapons one last time as he did his final pre-flight check. Finding every firearm safe he clambered back into the cockpit, squeezing past the Titan and Reaper as he did so. The ship lurched as he took off. He had a feeling he was overstaying his welcome, the IMC had successfully defended one of their research facilities from a Militia raid. They had tried to make off with several racks of Reapers and Stalkers, trying to most likely reverse engineer the stolen machines for their own production. Now their site security was performing their own sweeps of the battlefield. While he had never been approached while picking through the war zones he would fight or sometimes arrive at belatedly, he didn't want to test his luck in that situation.

As his ship rocketed through the sky, he punched the warp drive into action. The world seemed to stretch and distort before a sudden lurch of momentum and flung him into orbit, a few hundred miles from his ship. Keying the autopilot he chose to lean back in his chair and wait out the ride.

Weeks later he was once again fighting for Kuben Blisk. The pay was good and he needed to scavenge more parts or a mostly intact Spectre to finish his Reaper project. They had been carted out to the ass end of inhabited space. The IMC was beginning to establish a presence on an uninhabited planet. The word from the grapevine was that they had found some ruins that bore striking resemblance to the alien ruins on Typhon. General Marder had tried to keep the thing secret, as such nothing much was set up on the planet. A small research facility and a dry dock were the only things planetside, both functional but still under construction. A space elevator had connected a modest space station to the facilities.

Of course, like most things of importance, the Militia somehow caught wind of the situation. They sent three frigates, and warped into the system. One of the ships, under control of the SRS Militia had warped _inside_ of the space station. Needless to say both the ship and the station were destroyed, leaving massive, burning chunks of debris to rain upon the planet. Most of the facilities below were spared, however those that were struck took severe damage.

The Militia now with two ships were engaged with an IMC destroyer, even as they sent their ground forces to secure the facilities. From what Blisk had informed them, the entire SRS detachment hadn't been killed off, some of them were on board one of the ships that had belonged to the "6-4". A freelance faction that might as well have been Militia. The other ship belonged to Robert "Barker" Taube of the Angel City Elite. Blisk was nearly salivating at point. The bounty on Barker was large, he had ordered his men to save Barker for Blisk, everyone else was free game, and if they had run across "Gates" or Sarah Briggs they were to shoot them in the face.

Given the ambiguity of the IMC's orders to "defend the facilities from Militia incursion" that left their contracts very open. Blisk had told them to simply kill off the Militia then they would be able to head home. An easy paycheck.

At least, Wraith thought it was as he dropped with other Apex Predators in a drop pod screaming towards the planet's surface. Everyone was silent, there wasn't much to talk about moments before entering a battlefield. He appreciated the silence, well relative silence, the noise in the air around them was deafening, but his point still stood.

The crackling of air-break retro thrusters and a shift in inertia was the only warning he got before the pod slammed into the ground. The Pilots vacated the pod and were met with chaos. The IMC did not mention that giant packs of Prowlers were in the area. Soldiers and Titans alike fought each other and Prowlers left and right. He had to cloak himself as a Prowler knocked him over, giving off its rattled hiss like roar as its spines flared out and vibrated in anger. The loss of its prey was obviously confusing to the creature as he flickered out of sight. He took this moment to rise, move off a distance and empty his entire R-201 assault rifle into the beast. It staggered as flecks of blood and flesh tore from its body. Letting out a whimpering howl of pain the beast stumbled before collapsing to its side.

He gave a quick survey of his surroundings as he reloaded his weapon. A loud clash of metal was his only warning as he scrambled for cover. A olive drab Vanguard-Class Titan stumbling backwards , foot catching on nothing as it stumbled backwards off a short cliff, sprawling onto its back. As the machine tried to rise a sword bearing Stryder, now classified as a Ronin had ripped its massive broadsword from its magnetic clamps on its back. The Ronin stomped onto the Vanguard's right shoulder a moment before driving its electrically charged blade through the Vanguard. It gave a sharp twist, a shriek of metal following, before it withdrew its sword, the tip now covered in blood.

Wraith nodded to the Titan who now looked to him before running off. His close call with a Titan and hostile wildlife had kept him on edge. He frequently had to fight either murderous giant carnivores or fight off Militia forces. This had dragged on for several hours, however due to the stressful constant edginess of the situation it had felt like an eternity. Eventually Blisk had contacted his men mercenaries over the radio that they were needed at the two facilities.

Wraith was happy to comply with such an order and moved to what he hoped was relatively safer.

As he made his way to the large concrete and steel construct the distance he thankfully didn't run into any real resistance. The occasional group of Militia grunt or wounded Pilots. All of them easy prey. Sometimes he jogged past Prowlers feasting on those unfortunate enough to be mauled to death by the large creatures. Through tropical shrubs and undergrowth he ran until he made it to the fenced off outskirts of the facility. The fence was easily twenty feet tall, and electrified. Despite the fortifications that wasn't much of a deterrent if there was a gaping hole within the fence where it looked like a Titan barreled through the comparatively insignificant barrier. Regardless, he still avoided the mangled fence, wary of catching any errant arcs of electricity.

Because the IMC and by extension—the Apex Predators—had fallen back to the facility, the Frontier Militia forces had wedged themselves between him and his destination. Not that he paid that any mind. As a sick grin tugged at the corners of his mouth he began cutting a bloody swath through their forces. The appearance of an enemy pilot behind their entire assault force had left the Militia stunned and confused to say the least. The soldiers he came across hesitated as he engaged them. He relished the panicked confusion, soldiers torn between advancing their attack and defending their flanks. It was a mortal mistake on their part, one he exploited viciously.

Grunt's and a few unlucky pilots were chopped down in his rampage through their forces. He snapped one man's neck as he pulled up his sidearm to kill another. His hand was a blur of movement as he tossed a pulse blade into one of the rooms on his right. A moment later a orange ping of information flooded his HUD, briefly painting several Militia forces in vibrant orange through the walls. A grenade quickly followed the pulse blade and the orange lights winked out. Staying mobile, he slid on his knees, pulling up his R-201 to drop two more riflemen. As they collapsed, torsos riddled with holes, he fired his jump kit, breaking his slide and propelling him through a broken window.

He landed in the midst of a crossfire. Cloaking, he made a mad dash from off the main causeway into a partially constructed room. Its purpose was not evident, construction equipment filling most of the room. Right before he reached the threshold of the doorway he was greeted with an enemy pilot jumping down before him. Not breaking stride or losing momentum he transitioned to a jump kick, his cloaking field failing has he made contact with the other pilot. There was a thud followed a grunt of pain as the pilot's head jerked back and they fell over from the sudden influx of force. As the Militia pilot shook off the pain and grogginess Wraith was upon them. Quickly dropping to a knee, he unsheathed his knife and plunged it into the struggling pilot. When the man struggled beneath him he repeated the action, multiple times. A quick glance over his shoulder to make sure he was clear of hostiles was the only moment he spared before cleaning his knife and taking the pilot's helmet and dog tags. SRS helmets were valuable for some reason, not that he cared, profit was profit.

Helmet secured, he dusted himself off, found his hands covered in blood and decided to wipe those off on his helmet. Stooping to pick up his dropped rifle, he forged ahead. He ambled on, down a partially constructed corridor until he heard the sound of voices.

"Hey! We're falling back! We need to get out of here!" A voice with a prevalent old American accent yelled to someone.

"On whose orders?" Another voice responded.

"Barker's. Gates' ship is going down. We need to evacuate or we're stuck here." The first voice answered.

"That's bullshit! Since when did Barker give the SRS orders?" The second voice groused.

"Just shut up and let's go."

Wraith shrugged indifferently, he cared not whether the Militia extracted or not. He was having fun killing those who challenged him in combat. Part of him hoped that they wouldn't be able to extract, that meant more kills and more loot. There was a part of him that abhorred his current train of thought. Not that he paid any particular attention to the internal protests, he was having too much fun to consider anything else.

Just because he could, he followed the source of the voices to a large room filled with covered and partially assembled computer terminals and screens. Down a short flight of steps he saw a squad of Militia soldiers packing their gear and getting ready to move out. One of the grunt's glanced up to him before doing a double take as the pilot switched to his Devotion LMG. He leveled the weapon to his hip level before squeezing the trigger. The weapon began to jump and kick, becoming more frequent and erratic the longer the trigger was squeezed. Rounds flew everywhere, a few of the grunts attempting to hit him with blind fire as the others took cover.

The majority of Wraith's rounds found their target. Grunt's were cut down in rapid succession, their screams of anguish creating a symphony of pained cries. As his weapon ceased its shooting he was in an empty room. Nothing but corpses occupied the room now, save for Wraith who was busy reloading his Devotion. He took in the sights and gave out a chuckle. "Outclassed…"

With that he pulled up a map of the area, provided by the IMC. The digital representation of the area highlighted the Apex Predators and IMC forces in blue and Militia in orange. He wasn't too far from the IMC's defensive line. He looked out one of the doorways, it looked as if the Militia was receiving conflicting orders. The attacking forces held their line, but were no longer pushing forward. Some soldiers, near the rear of their forces, broke off to fall back to an undisclosed location. That action soon caused a chain reaction as their forces began to fall back. Titans escorted back groups of pilots and grunts. The Spectres the Militia brought along split into two groups. Some of the bipedal drones attempting to stall the IMC forces and their hired muscle from pursuing, the other group also providing escort detail.

The pursuing forces were held up for less than a few minutes, Titans and infantry making short work of the laughable defense the Militia threw up. Wraith, shrugging indifferently, also gave chase. He exited through the nearest doorway and was soon outside. He looked at the forces rushing past him and a small group of Titans moving behind them. He jumped towards the leading machine, catching on the front of the machine as he steadied his grip. He quickly clambered over the top of the machine and secured himself to the back of the towering, force multiplying machine.

"Who the hell are you?" An indignant female voice asked over the radio channel reserved for Blisk's pilots.

There was a chuckle, almost a full on laugh. "Best be careful before how you talk to people, not everyone will put up with your shit, Morria."

"I don't give a fuck! Who the hell is on my Titan?!" She screamed, apparently short tempered. Her Titan reached its arm up to grasp the freeloader upon her machine. "I am not a fucking taxi!"

Dodging the blindly swinging appendage, Wraith scowled disdainfully, and moved to remove the spare powercore from her machine. If she wanted to be nasty, so could he. With a twist and a heaved pull of effort he extracted the cylindrical battery, green lights dotting the length of the item. Predictably her Titan shuddered, stumbling before dropping to a knee, hand shooting out to catch its frame.

Either "Morria" was a mediocre pilot and had suffered damage to her electrical systems or she was bad at energy management and was pushing her machine too hard. Titans shouldn't react that adversely to having the spare battery removed unless they were relying on the power from the miniaturized energy core to function.

"What the hell!" She fumed, hatch opening as she hopped out.

The other pilot laughed wholeheartedly. "I tried to warn you!" He managed to choke out between laughs. The woman wheeled around to face the barrel of a Hammond P2011, a slightly outdated but reliable sidearm. "Wraith has been known to have a bad temper…!" The pilot said, winding down.

Morria responded with a growl of rage, yanking her own sidearm from her thigh holster only to have it shot out of her hand. She looked incredulously to the pilot, staring into the blazing orange visor of Wraith's helmet. An immaculate howl of rage, a challenge, escaped her lips as she rushed the pilot. Wraith responded with a swift boot to her abdomen, winding the angered pilot and dropping her like a rock. She growled out a hoarse, "...F-fuck you…" as her body tried to replace the wind that she had suddenly lost.

Wraith frowned, and kicked her in the jaw as she attempted to raise back up. Before he could act any further Blisk interrupted, apparently watching the scene unfold. "Oi, Oi, Wraith that's enough."

He looked to the stunned, pained but enraged visage of the woman then to the Titan that was marked as Blisk's. "You're letting rabid dogs in now, Blisk?"

The second pilot, the one who had found most of the situation hilarious spoke out, "W-wait! He can talk!?" He laughed. "I always thought the guy was a fuckin mute!"

"I'll handle it, just play nice, eh?" Blisk replied, his tone of voice indicating his stance on the situation.

Deciding that he would play nice, he unclasped his stolen power core and walked over to Morria who was busy nursing her mouth and the blood that poured liberally from the orifice. "You're lucky…" With that, he deposited the power core at her feet and walked off, not looking back at either Blisk or Morria and her humored friend.

Captain Franklin Wallis had seen his fair share of combat. He was a veteran ship captain, he had been in every major battle the Militia had ever been in with the IMC. As such, he knew when a ship was done. He had seen Gates' ship fall from low orbit, broken and dead, towards the surface of the planet.

He foresaw it long before the ship broke apart. It had taken an entire salvo from the IMS Armageddon, a dreadnaught class destroyer. The Spearhead barely stood a chance. As the salvo made contact the shields failed almost instantaneously. Soon superheat ionic plasma had bored through the vessel, leaving the Spearhead listing as it vented atmosphere and debris.

Captain Wallis could do nothing as he was engaged with Blisk's ship. A carrier, but with much more firepower than it had any right to be in possession of. He watched as lifeboats and escape pods jettisoned from the Spearhead as its hull began to break apart and it fell, burning into the planet below.

At that point he had already contacted Barker. He was planetside. He never understood why he, or any of the others risked themselves by going into the battlefield with their forces. He may have been a drunk, but he was a good man. Perhaps there was something noble about heading into battle with your men. He would never understand, but he knew nobility was a moot point if you were stranded upon that battlefield. He had requested, urged that the Militia withdraw immediately or nobody was going home.

Barker asked for a moment, one Wallis hoped they would be able to spare. Two minutes later Barker had told the Captain to be ready to extract as soon as they concluded their evacuations. As soon as that transmission had ended he knew they probably would die here. Evacuating all of their ground forces would take time. Time they did not have. This was punctuated by a scream of alarms and what could only be described as an earthquake.

Numerous alarms and warnings were blaring throughout the ship and across the bridge. "What the hell was that!?" Wallis barked gruffly.

"Titan bay two is gone! Structural integrity is at forty percent!" One of his bridge crewmen wailed. It was a young woman with black hair and umber skin. Fatima was her name, she was a valuable member of his bridge crew. "Sir if we don't—" she began fearfully before being cut off.

Wallis, staring out the bridge viewports barked out three orders. The last he would give. "Wunyoung, target the Apex Predators ship. Hit it with everything you've got. Melissa, initiate an evacuation order, then set the reactor to blow when the ship makes contact with the IMC ship." He let out a heavy sigh then added, "Clarke, ram us into that dreadnaught. If we're going down, we're taking these bastards with us…" he muttered.

They were stunned for but a moment then the bridge was a flurry of activity. Every functional weapon aboard his ship tore into Blisk's ship as his own ship was rapidly closing on the IMS Armageddon. Both ships firing upon the weakened Militia cruiser as Wallis, his bridge crew, and the remainder of the personnel on board evacuated.

Within the red hued confines of the lifeboat they were within, Melissa, Wallis' AI assistant chirped, "Ship collision detected. Initiating reactor meltdown. Estimated time until detonation: twelve seconds.".

Those gathered inside the boat looked out the tiny viewports to see the IMS Armageddon listing sideways, a massive gash in the ship as the final Militia cruiser in the area embedded itself within it. The lights and thrusters of both ships flickered before a bright white glow was seen for a fraction of a second. Quickly both ships expanded and burst in spots, like bubbles forming from boiling water before the two ships were flash vaporized. A ring of energy could be briefly seen from the shockwave, and while they were distant enough to not feel the wave, they could imagine the immense force from such a shock wave. The immense light however was a problem as those aboard hard to tear their gaze away lest they go blind. Similarly, the inside of the ship was bathed a bright white, stark black shadows from the windows being softened by the red emergency lights still active within the escape craft.

Now all they could do was hope and pray as the lifeboat began to burn its way through the atmosphere.

Wraith looked up at the sky to gaze at the miniature second sun that populated the sky for a brief moment before fading out. His pace slowed, just as many of those around him had done, all looking up at the bright light. Murmurs of confusion quickly followed. Footsoldiers getting on the radio, contacting their commanding officers and pilots checking in with their own detachment commanders.

Soon the IMC officer in charge of this operation, an insufferable woman, Colonel Santhall was on all radio channels, barking in her shrill voice. "Attention all IMC assets," Wraith hated that term, as did most of his fellow pilots, it made them sound like property. "Due to negligence by the _Apex Predators_ ," she spat, "We have lost the IMS Armageddon. That light in the sky was the last Militia ship self-destructing, destroying the Armageddon in the process." She paused, silence broadcasting over the channel. "You are to eliminate any remaining Militia forces. Do not fail me."

Blisk was next to speak to his men. "Alright, the Militia don't have any cruisers left. Our air support will eliminate the remaining terrorist aircraft, then we're getting out of here. We've done our job. Don't get left behind."

Next was another transmission this one a private missive from Blisk. "Oi, Wraith. I've forwarded your paycheck, don't want any problems between you and my pilots. Nothin' personal mate. Oh and if you stick around on this hellhole and find Barker, how about we split that bounty, eh?" The South African man laughed.

"No promises." Wraith rasped.

"Good hunting mate." Was Blisk's response.

Wraith let out a heavy sigh and moved with the IMC forces. He may as well get a headstart with his routine. And with his head on a swivel he marched back into the tropical thicket. Silent, he ambled on, pausing from his trek to assist the occasional IMC fire team or to shoot a pack of Prowlers. The mercenary followed a trail of tracks in the dirt, a column of boot prints and Titan tracks. It wasn't hard to keep on their trail, and as time wore on he was able to hear the voices of Militia and the sound of Titans. The occasional scream of jet engine mixed the growling sonic boom punctuating the brief arrival of air support gave short reprieves to the staccato symphony of gun shots. IMC Phantoms would chase down their Militia counterparts or occasionally drop bombs or perform high-speed strafing runs.

They were shooting, it was a whole lot of shooting. The Militia had wounded with them, the scent of blood attracting dozens of the feral beasts. Each was much larger than a person, easily a threat to a Titan if they got close enough. While the Militia had the advantage of firearms, the Prowlers had numbers. Eventually the Militia would expend their ammunition and be overrun. And as the evening wore on the Militia had no air support left to assist them and we're subject to unimpeded strikes by IMC Phantoms. The IMC assault ships striking the Militia for close to two hours before running out of ordanence

The IMC was stupid enough to build a research facility in the middle of Prowler breeding grounds and the Militia was dumb enough to attack the IMC without a backup plan. While he chuckled at the thought he frowned at the situation. The Prowlers would render a lot of the gear unusable, due to on the rip and tear nature of their feeding and killing. He digressed, he could still potentially make some profit off of this. He just had to be patient. And patient he could be.

As he reached a fork in the paths, one marked by the Militia's passage down into a shallow valley and one to a sheer cliff where a waterfall split the basalt face. He chose to camp out at the waterfall, utilizing his jumpkit to find a place far enough up where wandering Prowlers would not be able to bother him and large enough for him to doze off on. As he overlooked the horizon he watched the sun set and the jungle come alive in bioluminescence. Normally he would take awe at such a rare and unique sight. However, the sound of gunfire and the occasional scream or howl on the wind detracted from the scenery.

Over the course of the night the frequency of gunfire and screams decreased but never ceased. Wraith shrugged, he hoped the Militia would run out of ammunition—or get killed. Either was a good outcome. He digressed, he would find out in the morning. And with a final glance about his perch he closed his eyes and nodded off. He had a feeling that tomorrow was going to be a very long day.


	2. Chapter 2

Today was a bad day, today was a really bad day. Wraith had spent the last two hours slogging through tropical vegetation and running from the carnivorous wildlife. In fact that's what he was doing right now. Running, for his life. He had apparently crossed the path of an Alpha Prowler. The beast was much bigger than its beta counterparts and much, much angrier. It had chased the pilot for the last twenty minutes. It had shrugged off bullets and had tracked him Wraith with its sense of smell whenever the pilot cloaked. Wraith was starting to think this was less of the creature being hungry or defending it's territory and more of some sick game of cat and mouse. Still, such a thought was at the back of his mind as he ducked under the eight-hundred pound mass of muscle and claws sail over head. As the creature sailed into a thicket of shrubs and ferns, displacing tropical birds who gave disgruntled squawks as they took flight, Wraith took off in the opposite direction.

Pilots had a lot of stamina, however they couldn't run forever, and the ragged state Wraith was in, he was moments from dropping into an exhausted pile. If it wasn't for the copious amounts of adrenaline, both natural and stim injected he would of been dead awhile ago. He didn't have to look over his shoulder to confirm if he was still being chased, the thunderous roar of anger had told him enough. He had to give it to the beast, it was persistent. If he killed this thing, he was definitely going to mount its skull in his ship. Still, he had other priorities, chiefly not being mauled to death. If the rest of his attempts at scavenging were going to end up like this he would have to leave this planet and the salvageable gear behind.

Foot after foot as he ran forward, towards the sound of rushing water, a river almost thirty feet across, he made no other thoughts. He had to cross that river. A leap, punctuated by a grunt of exertion, followed by the roar of his jumpkit at full power propelled him across the river. He landed with a roll, stumbled forward a few feet then turned to look behind him as he reached a small clearing, a thick wall of jungle to his right and a sheer cliff wall to his left. As the prowler leaped the river as if it was an insignificant obstacle, the pilot cursed. "You've got to be _FUC-_ "

He yelped out as he jumped back, a Goliath, a creature that looked like a fifteen foot cross between a gorilla, armadillo and a rhino. Armored, heavily muscled, and with claws that could easily tear through armored hulls, all placed on the epitomy of angry animal musculature had just checked the Prowler with its flat, armored head. As the prowler let out a sound that sounded like a mixture of a hiss, a growl and a whimper the Goliath raised it heavy, muscled arms and brought down an ungodly amount of weight with enough force to crush the hull of a Titan. Wraith didn't need to watch the Goliath maul the prowler to death. The snapping of bones and the howls of pain telling enough. Wraith made it about three hundred feet before he heard the bellowing of the Goliath and the heavy, rapid pounding of its limbs as it rushed after him.

He was really, _really_ starting to hate this place. Taking off at the fastest speed his ragged body would allow, he kicked on his stim system and simultaneously called for his personal Titan. There was a forty second timer placed upon his HUD as he continued to run. His ship would have to make a short warp jump from the far side of one of this planet's moons to his location before it could deploy his Titan. There was a massive sonic boom as his ship jumped into the atmosphere, setting off a cacophony of startled birds and wildlife. This was shortly followed by a pillar of blue light, a beacon, being superimposed onto his HUD. He made his way to the marker as the Goliath closed on him. As the timer ticked down from ten seconds he noticed he was running out space between him and the beast, he just hoped he would make it to his Titan in time.

And as ten seconds ticked down to five and then zero he lept off of a short drop, into the cloud of dust framing the bubble shield of his Titan. Hatch locking closed and transferring controls just in time to engage the massive beast.

Private Beckett Saei had been with what remained of the Militia forces on this botched mission. Many of their forces and Titans had been damaged, destroyed or killed. The wildlife and IMC had tore into the fleeing Militia. The ships they thought would be enough to raid what was practically an undefended IMC facility were destroyed, many of the soldiers had lost any and all hope that they were going to leave here alive. It was an understatement to say that morale was low.

"Now! Isn't this something!" Barker laughed, kicking about a downed Crow dropship. He took a swig of his flask that he always had with him. "We're stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no way off this rock." He groused.

Beckett didn't really understand the man. Sure, Barker was influential, a hero, a veteran, a savior, all of these good things, but he was also a drunk. His mood seemed so flippant half the time he never knew if he was serious or not. He shrugged his shoulder and checked his rifle, not that he needed to, he, like the majority of the Militia forces had expended their ammunition during the long hours of the night, defending themselves from Prowlers and other wildlife. Now the column of Militia were walking in a ravine, heading towards what they hoped was a coast, somewhere they could take shelter from the carnivores of the jungles. There were about seventy soldiers left, an amalgamation of SRS Corp, Barker's ACEs and Gates' 6-4. He looked to his older sister, who walked along side him, her helmet clipped to her thigh. The two had joined the Militia together. They were from the core worlds, Earth to be specific. It was a beautiful planet, a lot of work had gone into preserving what was left of Earth's remaining expanses of nature. However the beauty of their own planet couldn't distract the two from what was happening on the Frontier. The two were on a fast track to join the IMC, after all, they provided a modest portion of humanity's consumer goods. However, after they had learned that the IMC basically tried to erase a planet to combat the Militia, they decided to fight for the people not willing to use mass genocide as a solution to the problem that was the Frontier.

After they had joined, they had learned that their eldest sister had joined the SRS Militia, they had spoken, even been deployed together for a few months before she was scouted and subsequently picked up by the 6-4. She was somewhere up ahead, towards the front, leading with Gates and Commander Briggs. She was a Lieutenant, and sadly, one of the few ranking soldiers left alive. Meanwhile, Beckett and his sister, Aeryn had taken up the rear, making nobody strayed behind. "Hey, 'Ryn, think we're going to make it out of here?"

"Beckett…" His sister sighed, " _Don't_. I don't want to talk about that." She huffed frustratedly.

Beckett frowned but complied. He hated the awkward silence, and thankfully it looked like there was going to be a break in the silence, as the column soldiers seemed to be congregating in a small clearing to the left of a cliff at the edge of a jungle.

A woman in a gray-blue Pilot jumpsuit climbed up a short rock, to address the rest of the group. It was Gates, her voice and attitude unmistakable. "Alright! Listen up! We are going to rest here, however, I need some of you to scout out a path ahead. Any volunteers, come and see me. We head out in ten. Any questions?" She asked, panning her head to look about the gathered footsoldiers and the two damaged, but still operational Titans they had with them. When nobody spoke up or moved to volunteer she sighed inwardly, nodded her head and moved to talk with Briggs and Barker when a bellowed roar echoed in the distance. It was far off but not so far as to not be a point of worry. She turned to the source of the noise, as had everyone else when the sound of a starship jumping into atmosphere pulled everyone's attention.

She heard murmurs of excitement and hope as the unidentified ship, which lacked an markings of the IMC or their biggest mercenary companies—primarily the Apex Predators and Vinson Dynamics—had settled into a high holding pattern. Taking this moment, she addressed the soldiers again, with Briggs and Barker speaking as well. "Before we get excited, we need to know if they're even friendly."

"Exactly," Briggs agreed. "We aren't armed and they may not enjoy the company of the Militia."

"But, they don't know that. We still have our weapons, and some Titans. We could always scare them into helping us." Barker counter-argued. At the glare he got from Briggs and the helmeted stare from Gates he added, "But we should still be careful..."

As if to punctuate that, the roar they had heard earlier was much closer, and was followed by the pounding thuds of something approaching them. Something heavy. Then there was the thump of a Titan deployment pod being fired, followed by the crackle of air-brake retro thrusters and a small earthquake that kicked up a small dust storm as it landed. Understandably, the Militia moved for cover and protection behind a group of rocks and boulders along the far side of the ravine. The Titans they had with them, two damaged, poorly armed Vanguards moved to act as shields for those who had insufficient cover.

Thankfully, or rather, strangely, the Titan, which was soon identified as what looked like a heavily customized Northstar stood up from its crouch to grapple what could only be described as a giant angry hunk of meat. The machine, with it's weapon still attached to its back side stepped a vicious looking headbutt and grappled the beast in a headlock. The machine struggled in its grasp, slid back a few feet, then had to let go of its opponent lest it be toppled over.

With brilliant gouts of blue flame the machine dashed backwards to nimbly dodge a heavy swing from the creature. At this point it removed its weapon—which looked like a bigger version of an XOBTR-16. If the rounds linked together that fed into the weapon and the size of the barrel were any indication. It also bore a large bayonet that ran under the length of the entire barrel and protruded ten inches past the muzzle brake of the weapon. The Northstar leveled the chain gun and opened fire. The rounds gouging bloody furrows into the gargantuan creature. The beast bellowed in rage, seemingly ignoring the wounds and leaping for the machine. Predictably, the Northstar dashed aside in an attempt to dodge the Goliath.

As the Goliath scrambled to its feet the Northstar dumped another thirty high-explosive incendiary armor-piercing rounds into the sturdy creature. Again the creature shrugged off the bullets and reared to rush the Titan. In retaliation Northstar dropped a large disk shaped tether trap.

The device clattered to the ground, quickly anchoring before detecting the creature and firing a steel cable with enough tensile strength to prevent a Titan from dashing away. This however didn't really stop the massive wall of meat.

It's movement partially restricted, the Goliath swung in large arc, the tether trap acting as a fulcrum. The Northstar, unable to dodge away due to recharging thrusters was shoulder checked, hard. The Northstar sprawled to the ground, and in a moment the Goliath was upon the machine. Its massive hand slamming down into the midsection of the robot. In response the Titan angled the chain gun towards the underbelly of the creature. In contrast to the earlier times it had been shot the beast actually scream out in pain. The beast staggered backwards and off of the downed Northstar, allowing the machine to rise.

The Northstar, staggering slightly, jumped up a relatively short distance before its flight thrusters kicked on. The machine fired off a missile salvo from one of its shoulder mounted canisters salvaged from an Atlas. When the Goliath, now in poor shape but obviously alive roared defiantly, the Northstar cut off its thrusters. The Titan landed upon the Goliath, aiming its feet for the stubborn creature's head. The was a rumble punctuated with a wet crunch. The Goliath may have been resilient but it couldn't withstand twelve tons of weight dropping thirty feet unto its head, no matter how thick it was.

The Militia who were hiding watched on in a stupor, having watched the whole fight unfold like some monster movie. The Northstar reloaded its weapon as it nudged the creature.

Inside the Northstar, Wraith was slumped back in his chair, heart beating loudly in his ears. Just as he breathed out a sigh of relief his Titan's AI warned him of Militia contacts behind him. Wraith cursed and ripped his control yoke sideways, depressing the twin firing studs as he did so. His chain gun barked angrily, bullets spraying wildly as a multitude of shell casings bounced off of the rocky ground with hollow metallic clinks.

A few of the Militia fired their remaining ammunition with ineffectual results. Wraith smiled when the shooting abruptly stopped, the Militia now apparently exhausted of their ammunition. He adjusted his aim for the people hiding amongst boulders and rocks when the two Vanguards—one equipped with a Broadsword, the other with an Scatter rifle—moved to attack him. The Militia foot soldiers took this time to flee further down the ravine. Wraith paid that little mind however, preoccupied with two Titans.

Commanding his Titan to the right he dodged a wave of electricity that sparked along the ground. One of the Auto-Titans swinging its Broadsword along the rocks to displace energy from the blade in a wave like attack. Wraith leveled his weapon, firing at the Vanguard welding the giant sword. In response the Vanguard placed the flat of the blade outwards, attempting to deflect the bullets. Rather than waste bullets, Wraith turned, shifting his target to the Vanguard with the Scatter rifle.

He assumed the machine was out of energy cores to use, as it had yet to fire a single shot of its weapon. He smiled, that made this much easier. Raising his chain gun he shot a burst into the Vanguard, it threw up a vortex shield, a magnetic field capable of suspending a majority of projectiles. The field flickered though, the few bullets that it did manage to intercept were simply deflected instead of being caught. He realized the cause was from the severely damaged, nearly skeletal state of the Vanguard's arm. The magnetic generators within Vanguard's left arm most likely severely damaged. Because of this it still took a significant amount of damage from Wraiths Northstar.

Managing to get about half of his eighty round drum into the Scatter rifle armed Vanguard he was forced to dodge away from the Vanguard with the giant sword. Burning two of his dash charges, he put distance between him and the Vanguards. It was a distance that wasn't maintained however as the Broadsword wielding Titan vanished in a cloud of blue-white energy. The other Vanguard boosting towards him.

Wraith's frown turned to a panicked scowl as his Northstar rocked forward. Several warnings rang within the confines of his cockpit. With a growl he turned around to catch the offending Vanguard's one-handed overhead swing. His Northstar shot it's left arm out to stop the Vanguard, moments from striking the Northstar a second time. Wraith brought his weapon up, skewered Vanguard with his bayonet and squeezed the trigger. The remainder of his ammo drum found purchase in the Vanguard. Suffering from the point blank attack, the Vanguard's chassis dented and folded as large furrows and holes were torn into the main bulk of the cockpit and torso area. The machine jerked with each impact, struggled briefly then shut down as it suffered critical damage to its vital systems and components. As the Titan died, the Northstar relived the Vanguard of its broadsword, and withdrew its chain gun. A proximity warning from his AI had prompted Wraith to spin a quick 180 degree turn, newly acquired broadsword lashing out.

In a swift movement he had split the remaining Vanguard in half, severing its torso from its legs. Taking the surprisingly effective reactionary attack in stride, he waltzed his Northstar over to the crippled Vanguard. He flipped the blade over so its sharp side was facing the earth then impaled the Militia Titan through the cockpit hatch, puncturing the powerhousing and vital systems behind the cockpit. The Vanguard struggled, twitched and seized up when the Northstar twisted the blade. As Wraith's Titan withdrew the Broadsword with a shriek of metal on metal the Vanguard dropped its heavy arm with a thud. "Easy." Wraith breathed out. He took a moment to look around his location, making sure it was clear of immediate threats before relaxing.

He used the momentary lapse in danger to contact his freighter flying in a holding pattern about a mile from the ground. "Hey, Natalie, I need you to send the Goblin and the Atlas. Got two Vanguards here."

"Nice find, Captain." Was the feminine response. "Are they intact? Last time you 'had a Vanguard' it was just the arms and a leg." He could hear the skeptical smug in her voice.

He turned to look at the two downed war machines. "...Mostly." He heard her sigh, and mutter something under her voice. "Send them to my current location, I'm going to poke around." He rasped, he elected to keep out possibly hunting down a group of Militia.

"Stay safe, Captain. Ship will be there." She said with concern undertoning her voice.

He grunted his affirmation and moved on. Stomping his way down the ravine, in the direction the Militia had run to. It was about four minutes of walking, well striding, given the height of his Titan and its ability to cover vast distances of land in a relatively short amount of time. Up ahead of him he was able to see that the ravine had begun to open up to a much larger clearing, a little plateau that almost served as a beach, a large lake behind the edge of the rock, dirt and grass. He estimated the drop to the water's surface to be maybe half a foot. And at the edge of the plateau were the Militia forces, all clustered near the water's edge. They saw the Northstar, and the blade it had acquired from one of their Vanguards and began to panic. Well, some of them did. Others began to beg and plead for mercy, others stood steadfast and resolute. He imagined some were also in shock.

Wraith revelled in this, their anguish. This would make the situation much more entertaining. He grinned and moved to speak when he had yet another proximity warning from his AI. He turned around, to the source of the warning and saw a Prowler jump atop his cockpit, optics being obscured by leather-like hide and scales. With a curse he threw the cat-like predator over his shoulder, towards the Milita. This elicited howls of protest and screams of fear from the group. And even as more Prowlers came out of the jungle from the ridge above, only three or four more, but enough to be a hassle, Wraith turned his Titan to stab the creature from earlier. It wasn't that he wanted to protect the Militia, however, if anything was going to kill these people, it would be him. The creature let out a mixed whimper and howl of pain before falling still and silent. Two of the other Prowlers began to clamber, crawl and claw at his Titan, as the other went to start attacking the Militia. He frowned, grabbed one of the creatures, squeezed as hard as the Northstar would allow, and yanked the bloodied, mangled creature from his chassis. At the same time he had opened fire, one handedly, at the Prowler attempting to maul a Militia rifleman. That Prowler was torn to chunks as the heavy caliber rounds tore into flesh and bone.

The remaining Prowler was proving to be a problem, constantly scrambling away whenever he tried to dislodge the creature. Becoming fed up, Wraith ignited his Northstar's flight thrusters and rocketed into the air. He performed arcs and spins as he rose above the ground, and as intended the creature was dislodged and fell seventy feet to its death. For safe measure, he opened his rocket pods along his chassis, often used in conjunction with his thrusters, for an algorithm his AI termed "Flight Core" and unleashed a horde of rockets into the surrounding jungles, killing anything lurking there. He allowed this to transpire for a few seconds before dropping back down to the ground. And with an earthshaking impact that left the ground fractured and jagged, forming a small crater, he waited for the dust to settle. For dramatic effect he slowly turned his Titan to the stunned Militia and stared. He waited, and was silent. He wanted to see their reaction, hear what they had to say if they had any words for him.

One of the pilot's, a woman—either SRS special forces or 6-4, from the look of things, if their uniform's color was an indication—stepped forward. "What do want?" She spoke loudly from where she stood. It was Gates. He could tell from her voice, it was hard to mistake her for anyone else. "Are you Militia?"

Wraith cloaked, opened the hatch of his Northstar and hopped out. "Vi, distract them for me will you." He asked as he walked away from the Titan. The dust floating around hiding the imperfect effect the cloaking system gave off.

"Very well." His Titan's AI chirped in his ear.

"An Auto-Titan?" Gates asked skeptically. "Who's side are you on?" She asked as the rest of the Militia relaxed.

"Formerly I was a stolen Titan serving the Marauder Corps Third Division Armored Cavalry. Currently, I have no affiliation." Vi answered truthfully, closing her hatch.

"What do you mean, 'formerly'?" Gates asked, hand drifting down to her sidearm.

"Captain Saleem Harris was killed in action six hundred twenty seven days ago. Shortly following my pilot's death, I had a… change of interests." Vi stated.

"That doesn't answer my question…" Gates said hand now gripping her still holstered sidearm.

"I've already answered your question. Perhaps your hearing is defective." Vi sassed.

Gates paused, breathed out a low sigh, then spoke again. "Sounds like you've had a few modifications."

"And you would be correct." Vi said with an artificial huff of irritation.

"Do you mind stating your Protocols?" Gates asked, flustered, her own patience wearing short.

"Very well. Protocol 1: Protect the Pilot. Protocol 2: Obey any order given by the Pilot. Protocol 3: Ignore Protocol 2 if doing so will violate Protocol 1." Vi stated, listing off her modified protocols.

"So your directives have been modified…" Gates muttered under her breath. "Where is your Pilot?" She pressed. Gates startled when the sound of a cloaking system deactivating.

She turned to the sight of looking down the barrel of a P2011, a bright amber faceplate. "There he is." Vi chirped happily.

"You move, you die. They move, you die." Wraith growled. Taking the woman's sidearm from her. When she didn't move he continued. "Tell them."

He heard a defiant growl from the woman, followed by a pause and muffled speaking as she addressed everyone over the radio.

"I'm taking your sidearm." He stated before turning to his Northstar. "If she tries anything… shoot her." He said, over his neural link and aloud, so Gates could hear. The commander of the 6-4 clenched her hands into trembling fists but didn't move otherwise. Wraith spent but a moment collecting her weapon.

He turned the weapon over, examining it before removing the magazine. As he did so, one of the Militia soldiers, a grunt, decided to take his chances at escape. He broke off from his position at the edge of the group with a frantic, desperate grunt of effort. He made it about twenty feet before Wraith fired the chambered round from Gates' sidearm. The man seized up, hands attempting to clutch between his shoulder blades before he collapsed onto his stomach with a cry of anguish.

As the man wailed away in the background, he spoke to his Titan. "Vi, bring him to me." He ordered.

The Titan quickly complied, depositing the man before her pilot. This earned a silent pat of thanks on the Northstar's nimble legs. Wraith crouched down to the man, looking over the pained and scared person before he stood and spoke, "Gear, off." He grunted.

The grunt, afraid and injured needed little else, in the way of additional "encouragement" and worked as quickly as his agonized body would allow. And as the injured man worked he turned back to Gates. "Call your pilots. Bring me Briggs and Barker."

"Like hell I am." She spat, voice rife with venom.

Wraith shrugged. It mattered not to him, he would get what he wanted, one way or another. Unclasping his Devotion LMG from his back, he racked the charging handle back and took aim, when Gates protested. "WAIT!" She yelled. Wraith paused and she pressed on, "You're going to execute unarmed prisoners?" She asked baffled. "That's—you're a—we're already at your mercy"

"Easier to work with corpses." He replied, shouldered his weapon again and prepared to fire. Again he was interrupted. Gates had pushed the barrel of the Devotion down, looking at Wraith.

"No, wait… I'll do it." She relented.

"Don't test me." He warned. "Get Briggs and Barker." He growled.

Gates had done as instructed, and Briggs and Barker were brought before him. Wraith had looked over the two of them, relieved Briggs of her weapon as well and ordered them as well. "Bring your pilots. If I find any hiding out, I'll kill all of you." He said with no room for uncertainty.

It turned out that Briggs and Barker were much better listeners than Gates was and within two minutes he had a handful of the specialized soldiers. He swept his gaze over the collection of Pilots. "All of you. Gear off. Keep your uniforms." He ordered as he watched his Goblin enter the hangar of his Freighter. As they began to strip themselves of their equipment he radioed Natalie, "Send the Goblin after it is unloaded. I have more stuff to pick up."

"Sure thing, boss." Was the crackling response over his radio.

Eventually he had a pile of gear on the ground and a group of pilots before him. He then had the grunts do the same. They needed a little coercion from time to time. He shot a few of the more defiant ones. And with his dominance firmly seated he watched over the Militia work on piling their gear, personnel on his right and a mountain of equipment on the left. He walked along the division between the gear and the soldiers, occasionally tearing his gaze from helmets and kevlar vests to glance at soldiers in their jumpsuits or BDUs. By the time he reached the end of their little plateau, he gazed into the water from the rock's edge. The bright blue tropical water was alluring, the kind of water that would be on an old postcard showcasing of a tropical paradise. He chuckled at the irony. This place was far from a paradise, the amount of hostile wildlife here was enough to spoil any idea of a paradise. This was punctuated by a distant cry of some animal, carried on the wind that was soon drowned out by the whine of his Goblin's modified engines.

He watched as the gathered Militia shied away from the ensuing dust storm as the aircraft touched down with a heavy thunk of landing gear on rocks. The rear bay door parted, before swinging down with a mechanical whine as it opened to meet the rocky ground, acting as a ramp. He watched his Atlas stomp its way off the back of his Goblin and stomp over to him. The bright white construct towing over him and casting him in shade.

"Move that gear." He nodded to the piles of equipment he had appropriated. The Titan silently acknowledged his order. As this transpired he began to patrol the gathered Militia, actively watching over them. As he walked along their ranks, he was stopped by Briggs, "So, pilot. Who told you to do this?"

Wraith stopped, looked to Briggs, chuckled darkly and shook his head. He began to move on when she spoke again. "Why are you doing this?"

This time, Wraith turned to her. "Because I can." He rasped gutturally, almost a growl, with a smile in his voice. "It's good pay." He finished.

"If this is about money, take us with you, we could pay you." Sarah Briggs offered.

"I don't work for terrorists." He growled.

"Then why do you help Blisk, the IMC?" She asked, anger creeping into her voice.

"They weren't the ones who blew up almost a billion people." He smiled, watching her face turn from anger, confusion and then shame.

"Pilot, the... _Atlas_ …" Vi nearly spat, "Has finished it's task." Wraith's Titan informed him over his neural link.

"Jealous?" Wraith asked, amused.

"...I do not have sufficient programming to synthesize human emotions." Vi stated, earning a chuckle from her Pilot.

"Well, if we're done, let's get out of here." He said with a weary sigh.

"That course of action is not possible. The Goblin lacks enough fuel to make the entire trip. Current fuel levels would only take the aircraft sixty-seven point nine one six percent of the distance between our current location and your Freightliner."

Wraith sighed, and instead of answering Vi, opened a channel with his mechanic, Natalie. "Natalie, why isn't the Goblin refueled?" He managed to hold back a growl, just barely.

"Because we don't have any fuel." Natalie responded, "I told you three weeks ago, and you said, 'We'll get more later.'" She explained deepening her voice in a mockery to mimic his own.

Wraith deflated sighed, and switched channels, calling his pilot. "Hey, 'Zero' I need you to land the Freighter at the edge of this plateau, Goblin doesn't have enough fuel."

There was a sigh and the sound of what was most likely video games being paused as a young voice replied with an annoyed, "Alright, sure thing." The channel then closed. He watched as the thrusters of the relatively massive ship dimmed in intensity and the ship started to descend.

The Militia watched this as well, many confused, some still hopeful that they would be able to leave. After about ten minutes of careful and skilled maneuvering the ship was able to hover above the water, low enough that one of the side ramps attached to one of his cargo bay's was able to form a giant bridge from the land to his ship. Wraith then turned to Vi. "Get the Goblin to Bay Three." He ordered, watching as both the Northstar and the Atlas climb aboard the Goblin before it took off, leaving Wraith by himself.

He began to walk up the makeshift bridge when he heard from Morgan, the other Pilot who worked with him. "Ey Wraith, there's a ton of Militia with you. They coming with you?" She asked, voice laced with a slight irish accent.

Wraith turned around, even as some of the point defense cannons turned to target the mass of Militia. "Almost forgot about those guys." He chuckled.

"So you just going to leave us?" One of the Militia called out.

Before he could respond he heard another voice, this one feminine. "I know that ship…" He watched as a person push their way through the crowd of soldiers. She made it to the front, looked up and down the ship then to the interior visible from the ramp, then back to the pilot standing before her.

"I _definitely_ know this ship…" She muttered. " _Who are you?_ " She asked.

Wraith chuckled, and shook his head. He turned to leave, muttering, "Get off my ramp."

"Say it to my face." She scowled. "I want to hear you say it face to face.

He spun around and marched to the woman, she was wearing a pilot jumpsuit, the silver bar of a lieutenant on her collar. "Get. Off. My. Ramp." He growled, his helmet inches from her scarred face.

"I said face to face. Not a helmet." She continued her withering scowl.

He sighed, turned away and started to walk up the ramp again. When he made it halfway up the incline he shouted, "Get off my ramp, Lieutenant."

"So what? That's it?!" He could hear the frustration in her voice. "You're leaving us to die?!" She shouted back.

"Help us out, and we can make it up to." Barker yelled out, making his way to the forefront, boldly walking up the ramp to meet Wraith.

As he got into speaking distance, Wraith received a call from Blisk. Answering it over his external speakers, he spoke. "Blisk."

"Oi, Wraith, you still in that shit hole, ey?" He laughed. "Any luck finding Barker?"

Wraith looked to Barker, who stood apprehensively, looking to Wraith.

"...No. He's probably dead though." Wraith sighed. "Waste of time. Too many Prowlers to make this worth it." He finished.

He could hear the disappointment in Blisk's voice. "Damn. So much for that bounty, ey? Well don't get eaten out there."

"Just tell them you fed him to Prowlers. IMC won't ask questions." Wraith offered.

"I like the way you think…" Blisk smiled. "See you around, pilot."

"You owe me. One hundred fifty thousand credits. On top of whatever the rest will pay me." Wraith said, turning to Barker, as his connection with Blisk terminated.

Barker, while relieved, blanched at Wraith's demand. "Can we negotiate?"

"No." Wraith growled. "You promise to pay me and I'll take you all back to Militia space." He was frank.

"Fine…" Barker groused, sounding like he had just swallowed the worst news in his life. "Guys! We've got a ride off this rock!" He cheered to the gathered Militia.

"We're taking them with us, huh?" Morgan asked.

"Yeah, if any of them touch anything, shoot all of them." He said loud enough for Barker to hear. He then turned to the leader of the Angel City Elite and said privately, "Might want to pass that along."

Barker frowned, but nodded. "...Yeah… right."

Minutes later the ramp was retracted, the ship was sealed and began its burning ascent back into the sky, clearing enough space to safely warp back into the ink black void of space. Away from that tropical hell hole of a planet.

* * *

 **Second Chapter, hopefully this one is okay. Dialogue came off kinda weird, but meh. Didn't want to spend an eternity trying to make it perfect. Let me know what you guys think. Thanks for reading!**


	3. Chapter 3

Wraith looked over the cargo bay at the Militia who were currently sorting themselves out within his cargo bay. Next to him sat a remote controlled Simulacrum. It was having its thigh servo motor repaired. It's operator, Morgan, was somewhere within the ship, using the robot until her leg had completely healed. Natalie was crouched in front of the construct, tinkering away at its leg. Looking back over the Militia one last time, he moved away, back towards the bridge. "Remember what I said." He said as he left the Cargo Bay.

He made his way up a steep but short, flight of stairs and into the front of the ship. Up ahead was his Pilot. A slight woman, her bright orange jumpsuit clearly visible around the edges of the chair she was slouching in.

"Hey, Zero." He announced his presence, running a hand through her buzzed hair.

She gave an uninterested grunt. Not looking up from her tablet which had some game on the screen. "When did we become a taxi?" She muttered.

"It's not for long. Take us to a fueling depot." He ordered. Keep everything locked up, until we get these Militia off the ship.

"Fine." She said shortly. Wraith nodded and stepped out of the bridge. He grabbed a spare tablet on his way out. He stalked past Morgan and Natalie and down into the bay, amongst the Militia. He found Barker conversing with Briggs and Gates.

"Oh hey! Speak of the man, our lovely Captain!" He smiled.

"You should drop us off a—" Briggs started before Wraith cut her off.

"First off, you pay me." He demanded, pushing the tablet towards Barker as a slight shift in inertia was felt throughout the ship.

"Where are we going?" Briggs asked.

"IMC controlled fueling depot." He answered. "Pay me and I won't drop you off there."

The Militia leaders grumbled but complied, one by one paying him a hefty sum of credits. Wraith double checked the transfers before putting the tablet away. "Thanks for your business." He smiled humorously.

"So, one of the Militia's most wanted is just another man driven by greed huh?" Briggs commented snidely.

"Driven? No." Wraith replied. "But I have to make a living." He said with a cross of his arms.

"So you make a living by killing others?" Briggs pressed.

"And you don't?" Wraith asked as he walked away.

Briggs bristled at his question but had to admit that the freelancer had a point.

"Dinner is in three hours." He commented as he stomped up a steep flight of metal stairs and onto a catwalk.

Cargo Bay Two had its collection of tables cleared of their usual occupancy of various articles of equipment, weapons and technology. The items were hastily reassembled and relocated to provide the Militia with a space to eat. Those well enough to eat were gathered in the impromptu galley, the actual galley lacking the space to facilitate so many people. There were several guarded conversations, after all these weren't the friendliest of conditions.

Wraith scratched at the base of his neck, where his helmet sealed with his neck guard and gorget. He had never worn his uniform for so long. He sighed inwardly as he moved a large cart with several pots and containers of food. He may have not been a fan of the Militia but he wouldn't starve them. So, as he pushed along the cart he would leave a modest serving of food on each of their tables. He figured they could serve themselves. Some would grumble or mutter some insult to the man. Others would offer muted thanks or some other sign of appreciation. Still many others said nothing, averting their gaze or all conversation abruptly dying off.

This pattern continued until he reached a table with a mix of 6-4 and Marauder Corps Militia. Several of the people looked related. And as he set the last container of food down he was stopped. "Hey, Wraith. Come and sit." A woman said, placing her hand on his arm. This effectively halted all conversations. Wraith felt several eyes on him as he paused.

"No." He shrugged out of her grasp. Pushing the cart back out of the room. As he neared the threshold he was called out again.

"Wraith! What happened to the owner of this ship?" She yelled out, face not exactly angry but determined.

Wraith looked to the woman, looked down momentarily before looking back up to return her gaze. "They're gone." He replied before leaving the room.

As he walked down one of the service corridor's he accessed his neural link. "Vi, tap into the ship's systems, I want you to monitor bay two. If they make any plans to attack me or my crew or sabotage the ship… I want to know about it." He ordered.

"As you wish, pilot." Vi, replied curtly.

He spent the rest of his walk in silence, only the occasional jostle of metal on metal breaking the monotonous clacking of his boots on metal paneling. Wraith didn't break his silence until he entered the actual galley. The current occupants, his crew, were currently eating food of much higher quality than the scraps that he forced the Militia to eat. They looked as he entered the large room, taking a break from their conversations. Zero paused her game to look over at him momentarily before returning to her addiction.

"Hey there, Captain." Morgan smiled, adjusting crutches that she had propped up against her. "So when you going to get out of that bloody uniform?"

Wraith looked to himself, indeed he was splattered with various fluids, primarily blood and mud. He grumbled at the mess, pushed the giant cart into the kitchen to be washed later and walked off to the bathroom to wash up.

Ridding himself of his worn, dirty outerwear he felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He sighed out tiredly, it had been a long, tiring couple of days out in the field. By the time he had left the warm cascading embrace of his shower, he felt relaxed, and at ease. He left his room with a pair of slate grey cargo pants, boots and a plain v-cut shirt. As he entered the galley once again he was greeted by Morgan.

"Now, isn't that a handsome face?" She smiled, earning an eye roll from the man. "You look better cleaned up. Smell better too." She joked as he walked past her.

"I feel better…" He replied, rolling his shoulders for added emphasis.

As he entered the kitchen he retrieved what remained of a frozen pizza his crew had cooked last night in his absence. A quick use of the microwave left him staring at the food as it was slowly bombarded with microwave radiation. As he waited for the timer to tick down, Vi spoke to him over his neural link.

"Sir, several Militia Grunts are conspiring against you, they are making plans to attack your crew while you are asleep." She whispered into his mind. "Also, your mental processes are fluctuating rapidly, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." He muttered to himself. "Also, prep the Spectres that are operational, have them wait for me outside of Cargo Bay Three." He sighed.

"Hey, what's wrong, cap'n?" Morgan asked, seeing his face slip into a tired frown.

"Some of the Militia are already planning to overthrow us…" He grumbled between mouthfuls of pizza. As he stuffed the last of his Pizza into his mouth he walked back into the kitchen, rinsing his plate off to be machine washed later. "You guys lock your rooms when you go to sleep, I don't want you to take any chances." He called over his shoulder as he stomped out of the room and into the hallway that ran between all four of the cargo bays of his ship. To his left and right were windows that overlooked the modest hangar in which his Goblin sat, parked. Further down was a massive bulked, split in two vertically, the small space between allowing for this causeway to fit between Cargo Bays One and Two. Further down were Cargo Bays Three and Four. He stopped at the door to Cargo Bay two, stepping out onto a catwalk that overlooked the cavernous space. He walked past the large area dedicated to the deployment of his varying arsenal of weaponry. Stepping up to a group of Five Spectres, three of them ironically painted in the color scheme of the Frontier Militia's olive drab, tan and orange. The machines turned to regard him and stood at attention, waiting for orders.

"Vi, can you remote control these Spectres?" Wraith asked.

"Can I remote control those Spectres? I'm an advanced AI, this is childsplay." She tutted. "Don't worry Pilot, I'll watch your back."

"Thanks…" He rumbled, mood souring the longer he sat outside the bulkhead airlock to Cargo Bay Three.

"Sir, your mental processes are changing again, are you okay?" Vi asked, concerned.

"I'm fine, go and get the ones who were conspiring against me. I'll wait here." He said as he withdrew his trusty P2011.

"Sir." Vi acknowledged, maneuvering the group of Spectres into the airlock before cycling through. She was within Bay Three for no longer than two minutes before the airlock cycled again, releasing the five spectres and four Militia Grunts.

"You didn't shoot anybody in there did you?" Wraith asked.

"No, however one Militia grunt has a dislocated jaw." Vi reported as one of the Spectres flexed its metal hand.

"Are these the grunts?" He asked.

"Yes sir." She responded, adding, "What do you wish to do with them?"

"Hang them upside down in one of the exterior leading airlocks." He ordered, earning curses and pleas of mercy. "I'll keep them like that until morning. Make sure they're tied up well, with good rope. I don't want it to break and have them laying on the floor." He instructed, "Also, tighten up their bindings the more they struggle, I want it as uncomfortable as possible." He finished, staying to overlook the process, to make sure everything was okay. When Vi had finished he ordered her to return the Spectres to their appropriate locations and to shut them down.

"Sir, I recommend you get proper sleep. Mental fatigue is adversely affecting your state of mind." Vi said as he trudged back to his sleeping quarters.

"You just want to watch my dreams again don't you?"

"I have to admit, they _are_ interesting. The human mind is fascinating." His Titan's AI admitted.

He let out a dry chuckle. "Yeah, well. It's kind of weird." He laughed.

"Do you wish me to cease this course of action?" She asked, he could hear the disappointment in her voice.

Wraith was silent for a moment, then he replied with a tired, "Do what you wish." As he flopped into bed, a groan of tired pleasure escaping his lips as he made contact with the soft bed beneath him. "Wake me in eight hours." He murmured as he drifted off to sleep. His rest was a welcomed one and he slept deeply. He dreamed of his old life, he was happier then, not as stressed. He needed a vacation, a break from all this fighting if his dreams were any indication. Unfortunately, his dreams of his happier memories, like all good things, came to an end. Vi woke him as he had told her to do so. A quick morning shower was briskly taken before he reached the airlock where he had kept the mutinous Militia soldiers.

Their faces were bright red and they looked tired. Bloodshot eyes and bloody noses were worn with painful grimaces. One of the men whimpered, as Wraith approached them. "Sleep well?" Wraith asked looking at the collective of red faced men.

"Oh god…! Cut us down...Please!" One man cried out in a groaned whimper.

Wraith walked away, into Cargo Bay Three, much to the cries and curses of the ones he left hanging. He noticed a lot of people sleeping in small groups. He had never given them a proper sleeping area last night. Not that he had somewhere to place that many people. A few of the Militia were awake and about, and at the sound of the airlock cycling more began to wake up. Many woke with confusion or a startle at the unfamiliar surroundings. He walked over to three random soldiers who were milling about. "You three, come with me." He ordered, ushering the trio to the airlock.

They complied, reluctantly. Stepping into the airlock with the trio, he waited until the airlock cycled again and they stepped out before he spoke to the Militia soldiers. "Get your friends down," He jerked his head towards the Militia hanging upside down. "They'll need medical attention." He finished.

The three looked between their comrades and the freelance pilot before proceeding to help their allies from their predicament. The Militia worked for a few minutes, hands carefully picking apart intricate knots. Eventually after nearly ten minutes had passed, they had managed to let their allies down. The hanging soldiers had to be supported, their legs numb and weak from a lack of blood flow. They also had splitting headaches. They were a crying, frowning mess. Wraith grinned, all traces of their earlier defiance was gone. "That's a warning. To all of you. I won't tolerate mutinous behavior." He said as they walked back into the airlock. Wraith cycled them through before adding, "Breakfast is in an hour."

As he began to leave he heard the chime of the ship's intercom system. "Hey, Captain, we will be docking in about an hour and a half." Zero yawned over the intercom speakers. As they snapped off he was already cycling back through the airlock. He grumbled, but was glad to be doing something. He was a step closer to getting these Militia off his ship. He would have Natalie compile a list of items they needed, as well as a reminder to get enough fuel to refill the hangar tanks for the Goblin that was currently grounded.

He trudged his way back into the crew quarters of his ship, talking to Natalie along the way. Imparting her with any information and requests he deemed necessary he moved into the kitchen. The only option for a breakfast this large was pancakes. A few months ago their food order had an extra zero tacked on to their quantity list. Instead of ending up with two boxes of the mix he ended up with twenty. He had barely touched the boxes, it was hard to go through twenty boxes of pancake mix. They had eaten pancakes two or three times a week for almost three months and they had only managed to consume about three fourths of the box. He figured he had more than enough mix to make about one hundred sixty pancakes.

Thankfully the gargantuan size of his task was considerably lessened by the size of the ship's kitchen and automated machines. He had an automatic mixer that prepared the mix into batter and the size of his stove range allowed for batches of fifty be made. He eventually called Morgan over to help him flip and remove the pancakes. "What, you want me to help you out?" She smiled, a slight Irish tinge to her voice.

"Yeah, can you put them on trays?" He said busily as he moved to pour more pancake batter onto the stovetop's flat, heated surface. "I've only got like, a hundred more to go." He chuckled.

Morgan paused. "It's… good to see you smiling again." She replied with her own smile.

He gave a short smile before huffing out, "I'm just glad I'm getting a little break from all this fighting." He paused, pouring out several disks of pancake batter before he added, "I'm not a robot..."

"You sure do fight like one." Morgan joked, despite the validity of her point. "You're a different person when you have that uniform on. Glad to see you aren't an edgy murder machine all the time." She chuckled.

Wraith opened his mouth, a frown on his face, found a lack of words to reply with and elected to reply with an embarrassed grimace. This earned a laugh from Morgan, "Hit it right on the head, aye?" When he didn't reply she nudged him with her elbow, "No worries cap'n. You're still good in my book." She smiled infectiously, eeking out a smile from the grumpy, embarrassed pilot.

The two continued on in friendly conversation up until he had finished the last of his "guests" breakfast. Morgan had packed their little cart with cutlery and plates as Wraith had put on the majority of his uniform. He came back into the kitchen with his helmet clipped to his thigh, suited up in an amalgamation of a pulse harness and an active camouflage system. A small armored container sat on his back, above his jumpkit, containing a large quantity of a potent mix of adrenaline, steroids and medical nanomachines. The stuff was expensive but had saved his life on more than one occasion. He nodded to Morgan, who smirked, folded her arms under her bust and commented, "Off to kill more people?"

"Can never be too careful." He shrugged, his voice already taking a more distant, darker edge.

"Well… be careful out there." She said seriously, her jovial tone dying in her throat. "I don't want to have to come and save your ass." She finished with the beginning of a smile.

Wraith grunted in agreement and pushed the cart away, down towards the Militia. He walked in silence, slowly lapsing back into his distant, murderous demeanor that surfaced when he wore this uniform. It had seen many changes and iterations, improvements, but it was the same uniform he had worn when he had first entered the Regeneration Program. A close call on his first combat job since he had left the Military had prompted him to take part in the program. It had significantly improved his combat abilities by in a sense, wiping his mind. His memories and mental state were backed up and to "reapplied" after receiving combat training. Of course that was what was supposed to happen. Shortly after leaving the Regeneration chamber the facility came under attack by several Militia raiding teams. They wanted to deprive the IMC of their elite pilots and any chance of training any more by sabotaging the facility. In the resulting battle Wraith had learned on the fly, his underlying capabilities as a Pilot being reinforced by the crucible of battle. He killed many that day, pilots and grunts alike, with nothing else at the forefront of his malleable mind, he was immersed in the way of killing as efficiently and when appropriate, as brutally as possible. When he did eventually get his memories restored they were muddied, the process interrupted. The memories of his old life were still there but they felt distant, almost like a past life. In a sense they were, all he really knew at that point was killing, the rush of combat. This situation did not improve when he subsequently went for his second, third and eventually his fourth Regen. His memories of his old life became more distant, faded, almost to the point where at times he couldn't believe he had ever done anything else in his existence aside from hunt and kill. Still there were times where his old memories came to the forefront of his mind, almost like a vividly lucid dream, leaving him feeling disgusted with the man he had become. As such he had as much disdain for his uniform as he had adoration. Part of him deeply despised himself and another adored it, as such it always left him in a disgruntled mood when he wore the uniform but wasn't in combat.

This must have showed in his mental processes as Vi spoke out to him. "Pilot, you have been standing outside of Cargo Bay Three's airlock for several minutes. Is everything okay?"

"Y-yeah. I'm fine. 'S just daydreaming was all." He grumbled as he shook himself from his stupor.

"Your mental processes say otherwise." She said seriously. "Pilot, as much as you seem to _not_ heed my advice, I would like you to at least humor me and seek a 'vacation' when possible." The Titan doted through their neural link.

"Believe me, when the opportunity presents itself, I'll definitely take it up." He huffed as he cycled through the airlock.

The Militia inside were now awake. Some glared at him, others muttered under their breaths making hand gestures and pointing at the pilot as he entered the cargo bay. Seeing the food he brought with him he had them all take seats at the tables that took up the center of the cavernous space and began to distribute two pancakes to each person. He finished the distribution of food with some left over. Deciding to take a few pancakes for himself he sat down at the same table where the Militia leaders were. This earned a few wary looks from the Militia officers.

"So he does have a face!" Barker laughed dryly. "You wouldn't happen to have an alcohol would you?" He said seriously, an almost desperate cast to his features.

Wraith paused, looked at the man for a moment and replied with a curt, "No. It's too early for that." He replied as he cut into a pancake.

"It's too early to be sober." Barker sulked, lamely cutting away at his pancakes, hunger taking prevalence over his childish mood.

They spent a brief moment in awkward silence before Briggs spoke up. "So what's your deal, 'Wraith'? Why are you doing this?" She asked, as he brought up a forkful of pancakes to his mouth. "You don't act like the average freelancer on an IMC payroll."

As he cleared his esophagus of food he replied with, "What do you mean?"

"Most Apex Predators or IMC are just money hungry murderers. Your actions don't match up with that image."

"And the Militia are just terrorists, criminals and pirates, right?" He countered. "There are some monsters in the IMC and Apex Predators, just like there are good people who have to play the hand they've been dealt." He explained.

"No offense, but you're kind of a monster. We have a bounty on you for a reason." Gates spoke up accusingly.

"No. The Militia made me a monster. _You_ called me Wraith. _You_ made me a boogeyman. So a boogeyman I became." Wraith explained.

"Even then, you're the one who fights for those money grubbing, dictatorial bastards. You fight for oppressors, and murderers." She replied vehemently.

Instead of humoring her with a reply, he simply smiled at her, the kind that told someone they were a hypocritical asshole. The withering glare Gates shot at the man had shown she had gotten the message.

"So… the ship has stopped. We're at an IMC refueling station, are you going to turn us in? You would make more money that way." Briggs sighed, eyes piercing into his own before averting to look at her own food as she cut away.

"No." He sighed. "You paid me to deliver you to Militia space. I'll honor that contract. I've been paid to do something, so I'm going to do it." Wraith told her, alleviating her underlying worries. Not that he hadn't entertained the idea, however, he liked to believe that he valued loyalty over money.

"So, at least you have _some_ redeeming qualities." Gates harrumphed.

Wraith ignored her, nodding at the grateful look on Briggs' face. They ate in silence, Wraith shifting his gaze from his food, to his wristwatch and occasionally to the other people at his table. He almost finished his meager breakfast when Briggs asked, "So what are your plans here? If you don't mind me asking."

"Refuel and resupply. Then we fly further out before making a warp jump." He muttered as he cut into the remaining bits of his food. He ate another portion of his breakfast, swallowed then added, "I figured you guys would want some privacy as to where we're jumping to." He raised an eyebrow as he commented, looking to Briggs.

"Surprising, you can sure put up a noble facade." Gates groused.

"Hey now Gates, cut the man some slack. He's been accommodating so far." Barker interjected. "Not the greatest of conditions, but it could be worse. That's gotta stand for somethin'."

"Wait a sec, you're _defending_ this… this… _monster_?" Gates sneered, incredulously.

Sarah Briggs frowned. "Now, now, we can't say he's a monst—"

"Like hell he isn't. He's killed countless Militia soldiers, executed people. Killed unarmed Militia, and dozens of pilots. Not to mention he loots the corpses afterwards." Gates listed off unable to keep the venom from her voice.

Wraith finished the last of his food, smiled at Gates then stood from the table. He removed his helmet where it was clipped to his thigh and shoved it down over his head. As his visor flickered to life he turned to retrieve his plate. "Fix that attitude of yours, Gates. Or I'll fix it for you." He threatened, his helmet modulating his voice to give it a darker, rougher quality.

Predictably, Gates began to reply with a cutting remark when Briggs stopped her. "Let's not push it, Gates."

As he walked out of Cargo Bay Three he waltzed over to his hangar, where the interior was bathed in a red hue from emergency lights up above. Glancing about the area he let out a short sigh then radioed Zero up in the bridge. "I'm cycling the Hangar, I want the rest of the ship on lockdown." He told her as he keyed a terminal up in the control booth hanging from the catwalks that lined the hangar.

"Sure thing…" Came her preoccupied voice, barely audible over his radio as warning alarms blared throughout the hangar as the atmosphere was equalized with the outside and one of the hangar doors began to lower. The mechanical whine of the door motors nearly drowned out the alarms, he made a mental note to get those replaced, they shouldn't be that loud. Or this slow for that matter. When the emergency lights switched from red to green he stepped out of the control booth and onto the hangar floor, watching the door lower down onto a dry dock on the edge of a fueling facility planetside. With a heavy sigh he ran a hand down the front of his helmet as the door finally touched down with the concrete.

As he made his way down the impromptu ramp he was met by an IMC security detail. Several grunts who most likely didn't get paid enough for their job as well as four spectres. A Titan was somewhere in the background, standing watch over a pair of people speaking in the distance. The giant machine was the size of a thumb due to the distance from Wraith. Even then the machine was dwarfed by the size of the fueling facility. "Oi! What are you doing here?" One of the grunts yelled indignantly, pulling Wraith back to the soldiers at the bottom of the ramp.

Wraith looked from the IMC contractors to the city in the background, then back to the facility before dragging his vision back to the soldiers. "I need supplies." He said shortly.

"Yeah, of course you do." The man grumbled with a roll of his eyes. "I'm going to need to see som—" The grunt began before being interrupted with a notification, in the upper corners of his HUD.

Wraith walked past the group of soldiers, some standing confused as he stepped foot into the facility proper. He took long strides over to a sleek looking security booth to find a woman wearing a middle gray jumpsuit. "I need to make a few purchases." Wraith rumbled, looking to the woman through the booth's glass. As he finished announcing himself he looked to his wrist mounted tacpad and copied the list he had Natalie compile. "Oh and by the way." He added as he looked to the security personnel who split up starting to head towards his ship and come back to question the pilot who had just—effectively—ignored them. "Tell them, If they step on my ship I'm shooting each of them. Twice." He grunted, looking back to the woman behind the glass.

She startled at the sudden attention but nodded her head. Reaching up to activate her headset as she began to type away at her workstation. He waited, arms crossed at the woman worked. Evidently he waited long enough for some of the security detail to return to him, he looked to see the others conversing among themselves halfway up the impromptu ramp of his hangar doors. They seemed to be arguing whether or not to go and inspect the ship or return to their previous post. "Sir, your domestic orders are being shipped now, when you're finished here go to the docks on the other side of town to pick up your ordered items." The woman said as she transferred over several bills and receipts to the man.

"...S-sir. If we may have a moment of your time?" One of the security guards asked. "Do you have any security violations or risks to declare? Any reason why you won't let us search your ship?" The guard tried with diplomacy.

"There's no need to search it." Wraith grunted, sizing the man up.

"With all do respect, sir, we're just doing our jobs."

"Unless there is a pertinent reason to search my ship you won't be on it."

"I… Sir, we're just asking for your cooperation."

"If I had any plans to threaten or harm this facility or the IMCs...property, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Understand?" Wraith finished, underlying threat clear and present.

"Hey mate, that's fucking _Wraith_ don't push it. Bloke 's following rules, don't make him start breakin' 'em." One of the other guards said, placing his hand on the other's shoulder, shaking his head.

The first guard growled but relented. "Don't give us a reason…" The guard threatened.

Wraith just chuckled darkly, finding humor in the man's attempts to be threatening. Failing to get any other reaction from the man the disgruntled guard left the man alone. As the guards returned to their posts Wraith focused his attention to the woman. "Send me an alert when refueling is done."

"Yes sir." She nodded. This was then followed by a troubled look. "Sir, how do you wish for us to fill the reservoirs for your Goblin?"

"I'll allow the fueling crew aboard to resupply my fuel reserves." His response was short. "They'll be... watched of course." He drawled.

"Yes sir. I'll let them know."

"How long should this take?"

"Two to three hours." She replied busily.

Wraith gave a rumble of acceptance, looking up to the sky in thought. Today was going to be an interesting affair of trying to juggle people around as to not tip people off that he was effectively smuggling several Militia high value targets. The sooner he was back in space, the more relaxed he would be.

* * *

 **Hopefully this chapter wasn't too awkward of a read. Thing should smooth out in the following chapters. Thanks for the read!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Spring Break is over... back to school and back to writing! This chapter is a lot shorter than I normally would write, but I wanted to get a chapter out for you guys and girls. Thanks for giving me a read!**

After several hours of waiting and a judicious application of threats and careful instructions Wraith was able to resupply his ship without any incidents. As they pulled away from the planet Wraith slumped back in his chair. He took a moment to look out of the rectangular viewport in the common area. He watched as the verdant and azure hues of the planet slowly fade into the distance. He watched this for a moment before he let out a short sigh, returning to cleaning his helmet.

The heavy, protective garb was worn out. The helmet sported several damaged areas. Small grooves and trenches skirted along his helmet in a few places. Those were close calls, each wound where a bullet had almost killed the pilot. There was also a spiderweb of small scratches and knicks. He turned the item over in his hands, regarding the thing. Perhaps it was time to replace it. The thing had seen through most of his time as "Wraith". It was a part of him, part of his identity. As such, the idea of discarding it felt like he was discarding a part of himself. Standing with a sigh of resignation, he moved towards Cargo Bay Two, to grab a replacement helmet.

Within minutes he was sorting through several piles of helmets. They varied in sizes and weights. Designs varied as well. He looked through various designs. From the asterisk shaped visors of the SRS Militia to the camera linked, armored, visors of IMC special forces helmets. He looked at his current helmet. The smile shaped visor was common with pilots that utilized pulse blades. However for some reason he didn't choose another helmet of similar design. He wanted to change things up a bit.

He opted to go for one of the SRS helmets, this one wasn't as oblong as the average SRS helmets. It featured a flatter face and a wider visor. He hefted the helmet, rolling its weight around in his hands. Satisfied with the weight, he looked over the item's various ports and cable jacks. Surprisingly, the helmet had several hardpoints and picatinny rails. Grinning, he started to salvage attachments and components from other helmets. He removed modular armor plates, battery packs, navigational system amplifiers and an optic/lighting unit from one of the high altitude helmets he had lying around.

A few minutes of feeding and organizing cables as well as screwing on components to the various mounts and picatinny rails had left him with his custom helmet. He smiled at his handiwork. He would have to take it apart later and repaint it, but it would suffice for now. He then turned the helmet over, peering into the protective garb. He looked at the padding inside for a brief moment before starting to remove all of it. He placed it in a little bin full or other dirty helmet liners and pads. He then reached into a side drawer where he kept cleaned and new liners. He sorted through the various liner riggings, finding one that fit his new helmet and began the laborious process of inserting the rigging and padding back into the helmet. He spent a few laborious minutes correctly and carefully preparing his helmet, and after double checking his work, he was satisfied. Wraith had just barely adjusted the color of the lights on his helmet when he heard the PA system crackle on.

He sighed, pushing the helmet down, over his head and walked into Cargo Bay Three. He imagined someone on the ship was going to say something about the Militia on board. What he heard instead had surprised him. "Hey, Captain, incoming distress beacon." Natalie spoked over the ship's speaker.

Wraith keyed his new helmet's radio, satisfied that it worked, and replied with, "From whom?" he asked as he looked around the Militia who had stopped their own conversation to stare up at the PA system.

"No affiliation. It's civilian." Natalie replied, this time over a private channel.

Wraith frowned, it could be a trap, pirates used these types of beacons to lure victims in. Then again, it could very well be genuine, and he didn't want to ignore civilians in peril. He sighed, but relented. "Can you get us eyes on the situation?"

"Give me a few minutes, Captain." Natalie replied, the sound of a keyboard could be heard in the background. "I've sent the data to your tac-pad."

Wraith pulled up his left arm, staring at the screen attached to the wrist mounted tactical computer. It was satellite surveillance of a small town that had turned into a battleground. Buildings were on fire, some were collapsed, there were trashed vehicles everywhere and dead bodies littered the streets. It looked as if the local police force had been eliminated as well. He was able to pick out a few Titans and a group of figures moving about. In the center of the town was a larger grouping of people—he assumed—the survivors. He only knew of a few groups that were capable of something like this. There were a few independent mercenary companies as well as the bigger independents like the Apex Predators, Vinson Dynamics or any of the Militia Freelancers. However, something like this didn't really fit the MO of these groups. He chalked it up to Pirates, or a Mercenary group that did plundering and raiding on the side.

"Any Ideas on who this might be?" Wraith asked as he looked over the data.

"My money's on the Crimson Order or Blackwatch." She suggested.

He thought over what she said and came to agree on her two choices. He hoped it wasn't Blackwatch. They were similar to the Apex Predators in many ways. Blackwatch was a smaller organization, but they only took the cream of the crop. They didn't have open recruitment, you had to be invited. From what he had heard, Blackwatch was a full-time commitment, the only way out was through death. From their track record they had never failed an operation, but they often relied on subterfuge and stealth. Not to say that they weren't good in a straight fight, however, if the situation ever got to that point it would be because Blackwatch willed it. They were the boogeymen of the Frontier, an urban legend, a myth. People feared them, and for good reason. If they were the ones raiding this colony he would have to leave the civilians to their fate. People didn't cross or interfere with Blackwatch if they had a vested interest in staying alive.

"Hopefully it's not Blackwatch." Wraith sighed. "Tell, Zero to get us into orbit, I'll check it out. Is Vi ready for warpfall?" He asked as he walked back out into Cargo Bay Two before he cycled over to Cargo Bay One.

"She's ready to go, just set some coordinates and strap in." He could hear her smile over the PA system.

"Alright." He said as he walked over to where his Northstar, VI-3195 was waiting. She stood next to an Atlas which was currently deactivated. As he approached, Vi "awoke", central optic twitching briefly as orange operational lights flickered on. The optics swept across the room before settling on him.

"Well, hello there, Pilot." Vi greeted warmly. "I figure we are going planetside?"

"Yep, you hear the news?" He said as he climbed up towards her torso, where the cockpit was located.

"Yes, I am caught up with the current situation." She replied as her chassis unfolded to allow her operator to climb inside the cockpit.

"Good." He grunted as he adjusted his weight. He keyed in a few coordinates for his warpfall, basing them off of the satellite images from earlier.

"Natalie has sent me instructions to enter deployment tube three. Please standby." Vi chirped over his neural link as she walked over towards the titan and reaper deployment tubes he had installed on the ship.

"Grab the 30mm and the Plasma Rail." He ordered as she walked across Cargo Bay One.

"Both, sir?" Vi asked, confused.

"Yeah, we might need both." He reaffirmed.

"Very well, Pilot." Vi almost sighed, magnetically attaching his custom 30mm autocannon and then his custom Plasma Railgun to her back. With said weapons firmly secured, she maneuvered over to what could be described as a barrel of a giant cannon. The interior was lined with powerful electromagnets, which were currently disabled, which—when enabled—allowed the device to propel his Titans at a high velocity, for quick deployment into any situation.

As she climbed inside the structure, he felt a buzzing sensation as the magnets activated, the Titan taking on a weightless feeling as it was suspended in a field of repelling force. There was an influx of force as the Titan cleared the ship, followed by a glowing white tear that began to envelope the Titan as it initiated a warp jump. Two seconds later they were in atmosphere, several stories above the ground. Vi activated her retro thrusters, slowing their descent as they touched the ground with a rumbling thud.

"Transferring controls to you." Vi intoned as she righted herself from her crouching position.

Wraith felt the controls slacken in his grip, signalling that Vi had, in fact, transferred controls. He began to move her towards the outskirts of the town, setting her sensors to scan for any life signs.

They approached several hastily abandoned buildings, they looked like they had already been ransacked. A few homes had broken windows or open doors. A few of the houses had bullet holes or scorch marks, and some of them had been set on fire. Some homes looked like they used to be on fire before the flames died out or were put out. He would of called the place a ghost town if it wasn't for the occasional corpse or abandoned vehicle. The entire scene had an eerie cast to it, fog clung to the atmosphere, shrouding any details in the distance, reducing everything to a faint silhouette.

The pair continued on for some time, clearing block after block of the recently abandoned city before Vi interrupted him. "Sir, I am detecting a single lifesign. It is three hundred fifty six feet Northwest of our current location." The AI informed.

Wraith grunted in affirmation, diverting his course to intercept Vi's signal. They covered the distance within a minute, as the two approached the source of the signal they noticed a little girl. Upon noticing the thirty five foot war machine the child redoubled her wailing sobs and began to run away. She had no chance of outrunning the machine, and watching her try was heartbreaking. Stopping the machine he disembarked, trying to approach the frightened little girl in a way not to further upset her.

The girl still cried but didn't try to run away. He tried calming the girl, approaching the child with his hands put out in a disarming manner and speaking in a calming tone. As he approached the girl she took a small step or two away.

He shushed the frightened child, "Hey hey, I'm not going to hurt you. It's alright." Wraith stopped a foot away from the frightened girl. "Do you have a name?" He asked.

The girl hiccupped a few times, let out a sniffle then replied with a small voiced, "H-Hera."

Wraith smiled. "That's a pretty name." He tried to reassure her child, talking in a soft tone to the little girl before him. "Where are your parents, Hera?" He asked, crouching down to her level.

Hera pointed past the man, to one of the buildings that were on fire. Wraith frowned as he turned to follow her finger. "Is it okay if I go take a look?" He asked in a comforting tone.

Hera nodded meekly, fighting back more sobs with hiccups and sniffles.

"My friend will watch you okay?" Wraith reassured her, a smile in his voice. He motioned for Vi to approach. The Titan complied, stomping over to their location. "Keep her safe." Wraith instructed as he stood up, dusting his pants off.

"Yes sir. However, your safety is my priority." Vi intoned as she crouched down to lower her four fingered hand to the ground motioning for Hera to step onto the upturned hand. Hera did so reluctantly, taking timid little steps. When Vi began to move, Hera gripped the Titan's thumb for support.

"Stay safe you two. I'll be back."

"I will be waiting, pilot." Vi, replied, her central ball optic turning to focus on him.

With that, Wraith took a brisk pace towards the house Hera had pointed out. True to her word, the building was on fire. The prefab nature of the building had lent the structure a metal and concrete quality. What wood did exist however was clearly ablaze, as well as any flammable furniture. As he approached the front door of the abode he noticed multiple orange splatters covering the building. It was thermite, cooling at this point, but it was obvious that it had caused the fires. Whoever these people were, they had a Scorch variant of an Ogre-Class Titan. He frowned. These people were using Titans against unarmed civilians.

He pushed the slightly ajar door open to be met with a hazy interior, smoke starting to fill the lower floor. He glanced up at the dancing clouds along the ceiling before looking back down to the house itself. The building had been pillaged. Several dressers and containers had shelves missing, or displaced, some items were smashed against the floor. He shook his head ruefully. He couldn't really judge these people on this aspect. Robbing the living was a little more acceptable than robbing the dead.

Pushing that thought from his mind, he moved deeper into the house, into what looked like a living room or a den. There were wires sticking out of one of the walls, someone had probably stolen their Holoscreen. However that wasn't as interesting or important as three figures tied to each other sitting on the floor. One of them noticed the pilot and began to panic, inciting similar reactions in the others.

"No! Nononononono! Please! Don't!" A teenager yelled fearfully. If Wraith had to guess, he would ballpark her between fourteen and sixteen.

"Here to finish the fuckin' job?!" A man, he assumed their father barked. One of his legs was badly bruised. While it didn't look broken, it was definitely dislocated.

"Please, you don't have to do this. You've already taken everything we have! Have mercy… please!" A woman muttered, with a whimper.

"Hera told me you could use some help." Wraith replied, casting his gaze about the ransacked room.

"Hera?! Where is she? WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO WITH MY DAUGHTER!?" The father bellowed, nearly screaming as he struggled against his bonds..

"She's safe." Wraith shrugged off his emotional response. "Need help?"

"You're here to help?!" The mother asked incredulously. Her relief was just as palpable as her skepticism. "Can you take us to our daughter?" She pleaded.

"Not like that," He pointed to their bindings, "I can't." He replied as he brandished his combat knife. He began to work at a series of complicated knots. Careful of his blade, he took much longer than expected. He didn't want to cut anyone or stab them in the back. Their impatient fidgeting also exponentially slowed his progress, and while it was understandable, it was infuriating nonetheless. He frowned as he carefully picked at the bindings, alternating between fraying cords of rope and sawing away at them. When he managed to get through the bulk of the knot, the cords slackened considerably, allowing for the three to disentangle themselves. As soon as they were free, the father, rather predictably threw a punch at the man.

Said attack sailed over the pilot's head with a gust of air as he ducked underneath the telegraphed attack. The pilot sprung back up with a knee to his attacker's abdomen, dropping the man like a rock. As the older man collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath in between groans of pain, he turned to the mother and her eldest daughter. "You're lucky I don't kill him." Wraith growled, jabbing his knife in his direction. "Your daughter is outside. Take your asshole husband with you." He rasped, as he sheathed his knife and turned to leave in a deft movement.

As he cleared the home there was a brief moment of silence before the other three emerged, all of them calling for Hera. In the distance, he could hear the girl's happy replies and the stomping of his Northstar approaching. Soon enough the lanky frame of the machine was visible in the obscuring fog, rapidly gaining detail and definition as it approached in several large strides, Hera held in its massive hand. When the Northstar stopped at the edge of the sidewalk the family rushed up as the machine lowered it's hand to the ground, allowing Hera to jump off. Wraith watched as the family was reunited. A little oasis of happiness in this desolate, abandoned husk of a town. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips, unable to frown at the heartwarming scene.

"Thank you!" The mother said, turning to Wraith in between fussing over her daughter.

"Don't mention it." He replied as he began to climb back into Vi's chassis. "Hey, kid." He called, turning to Hera. "Stay safe out there." Wraith finished as the main plates of the chassis folded back in on themselves, sealing the pilot in the machine. He was graced with a toothy smile and an enthusiastic wave from the little girl as the Titan turned on its axis and stomped away.

"That was kind of you." Vi noted.

"I have a weak spot for civilians. Especially children." Wraith murmured.

"Noted." Vi hummed, masking an approximation of a chuckle.

"What's so funny?" Wraith asked his AI companion.

"Your actions contradict your image. I find that humorous." The machine replied succinctly.

"Yeah, well, I didn't make this image." Wraith groused.

"No. However, you do live up to it, and enjoy doing so."

"If you have to do something, might as well enjoy it." He grunted.

"That statement seems to match your mental state during many of your actions. There seems to be a general lack of... regret." Vi replied as they walked up a rather steep hill at the edge of the town.

"Life's too short to regret." He grunted, looking over the town from the sheer, cliff side perch he was on.

"That is something you significantly shorten for others."

"Like I said, 'no regrets'."

Vi chuckled shortly before abruptly stopping as an explosion was seen in the distance. "Sir—"

"I see it." Wraith hummed as he enabled the magnification systems housed in his Northstar's optics. He watched as his viewport zoomed in as he pulled up the system. 1200 meters appeared as 100 meters, allowing him to see several figures in black and red scrambled amongst a few Titans as several mismatched figures arced around the surrounding rooftops and buildings. He planned his viewport to the right to see a large cluster of civilians. He frowned. Whoever these guys were, they were putting the civilians in the crossfire.

"Vi, are those guys Militia?"

"I am not detecting any Militia ship's within the vicinity. However , it is possible that this is a local Militia group." Vi informed as she preformed a quick scan of the immediate area and the atmosphere, pinging Wraith's ship in order to so.

"Natalie. Are there any Militia ship's within the system?" Wraith asked as he continued to watch the scene unfold. "I'm seeing what looks like Militia."

There was a pause before a sheepish woman replied, "Yeeeeah… about that…" There was a pause as she took a breath then let out, "Morgan thought it was a good idea to give you some backup… she took some of the Militia captives with her."

Wraith felt a twitch in his right eye as he paused to take in what Natalie had just said. He released a hiss of air that bordered a growl, frustration and anger coming to a boiling point.

"Pilot. I suggest we assist Morgan. They lack Titan support, placing them at a severe disadvantage." Vi suggested .

Wraith sighed, then unclasped the modified plasma railgun from Vi's back. As the weapon was readied his viewport flickered with a new layer for his HUD. As the weapon linked with his Titan's systems a reticle blinked into existence, synced to follow the barrel trajectory of his railgun. He cycled through his various optics, setting up the zoom capabilities of his current weapon. When all systems reported back as ready he lined up a shot to one of the Titans down in the city.

"Sir, that target is well over a kilometer away. Not to mention, it is moving." Vi intoned as Wraith began to spin up the modified coils on his plasma railgun.

A custom project of his, the modifications he made to the weapon were not insignificant. The modifications featured two sets of rotating electromagnetic coils as well as each rotating chamber having almost double the normal amount of coils. Because of this the weapon would normally have projected the plasma at a much higher velocity, despite the improvement though, the power draw was considerable. The coils were drawing so much power that it couldn't offer enough energy to convert its tungsten slugs into plasma. That said, in order to counteract the serious flaw in his tinkering he opted for a larger battery pack to power the weapon. This resulted in a massive, unwieldy weapon with enough oomph to down Stryder-Class Titans in a single fully charged shot at optimal range. However, due to it's longer spool up time, it was almost never used at such a distance. He often found himself firing long distances, such as this one. He would occasionally miss his targets, as it was hard to hit something this far away while it was also moving erratically. However, whatever did hit, often heavily damaged or crippled the intended target.

As the coils began to glow an almost white-hot color Wraith adjusted his aim. His target was an Atlas-Class Titan—a Tone. The hulking grey and red machine sat behind a blue hexagonal particle shield, protecting itself from small arms fire. It proved to be an excellent target and after lining up his shot he fired. There was a thunderous crack as the plasma slug was ejected at an incredible velocity, breaking the sound barrier. His Northstar dug its feet and anchoring systems into the ground as it was forced backwards. A trail of vapor burned through the air, after the slug as it started to arc downwards due to distance and gravity. Nevertheless the round made contact, striking the Titan in the arm.

The force of the impact had nearly sheared the arm off of the Tone, blowing away the majority of the armor and mangling the metal superstructure as the Titan was slammed sideways from the shot. He watched as the arm dropped from holding the 40mm cannon it was equipped with. As the arm jerked away it almost fell off the chassis, suspended only by a few bolts that had fused to the chassis.

Predictably, the machine stumbled away from the damage, seeking cover as it alerted its allies. In response, two of the Titan broke off from their allies in order to close distance and engage with the Northstar.

Over a mile away, Wraith laughed at the two foolish, but brave pilots. "If they're so eager to die, then let's oblige them, shall we?" He cackled as his Plasma railgun began to spool back up. Morgan blinked out of existence, saving herself from certain death as a thermite canister detonated where she had once been standing. Ever since she started this ambush she had been using her phase shift quite liberally. Shifting through time saving herself from death at least five times in the last seven minutes.

She heard another thunderous crack. The third in the last two minutes. This was followed by a distant explosion as one of the Crimson Order's Titans was destroyed. She chuckled, served the assholes right, these guys were monsters, scumbags, they deserved everything that they were going to get.

Barely audible over the sound of battle outside of the building she was taking refuge in she heard the heavy footsteps of a pilot. With just enough time to react thanks to the auditory cue she was able to pull up her 'Flatline' assault rifle. Putting half a clip into the man as he cleared the threshold. The red and black garbed pilot stumbled forward due to momentum before tripping over his own feet, twitching momentarily before expiring.

The Militia she had taken with her were dealing with their own problems. Two of the volunteers had already been killed, another had been injured. The Crimson Order had several Titans with them, one of which was a Ronin. The nimble Stryder-Class Titan wasn't particularly well armed, it couldn't go toe to toe with most Titans in a straight fight, but it did excel at hit and run tactics as well as fighting infantry. Unfortunately for Morgan and her small group, they had experienced first hand, the propensity of the Ronin's anti-personnel abilities. The Titan's Leadwall shotgun had made short work of two of the Militia she had brought with her, one of them had been a pilot. The wounded soldier had come from the Tone Wraith had decommissioned earlier. One of the grunts had caught shrapnel from one of the Tone's shoulder mounted rocket pods.

Currently that had left Morgan and her ragtag group scrambling between buildings and rooftops, taking potshots at the Scorch and the Ronin as they played a deadly game of cat and mouse. The Scorch had taken many hits but had shrugged off most of the damage. The Ronin on the other hand had taken much fewer hits, appropriate for such a nimble frame. However, the few hits that had landed had proven to be fairly damaging. The pilot was much more cautious now and moved with much less grace and finesse as before. Still, the weaponry used by both machines were still an ample threat. Something that was proven again to Morgan as another shower of thermite singed her Simulacrum's frame.

Phase-shifting, she lept out of a vacant window and into the backyard of some kind of small business. From the amount of tables and chairs about she concluded that it was most likely some sort of outdoor restaurant. Morgan had little time to ponder this however as she narrowly avoided another thermite canister that slagged a group of dining chairs and tables adjacent to where she was standing. Barking in a mix of surprise, fear, and anger she yanked a firestar from one of her thigh pouches and nailed the Scorch in its central optic. As the Titan slapped its hand up to the giant ball that made up its main optical systems she switched to the Cold War Anti-Titan weapon on her back. Wraith would be mad if he found out she had taken the weapon without consulting him. Vinson Dynamics had only made a few of these things due to their expensive price tags. They were a rare find outside of the Apex Predators, the IMC's Ares Division or Vinson Dynamics' own private military force. This coupled with the fact that Wraith would not steal from his employers made the weapons almost unobtainable for him. Despite this, the heavy weapon would come in handy as Morgan fired off several bursts into the temporarily blinded machine.

The heavy weapon was making short work of the Scorch, even as she began to seek cover, firing while shooting. By the time the Scorch had recovered, Morgan was already out of sight, in cover. The Ogre-Class Titan had suffered heavy damage at this point, much of its protective heat resistant shell was destroyed or compromised. Sparks and soot gouged heavily from the machine as flames licked at various internal systems. And as Morgan fumbled with another plasma energy cell to replace the spent one in the Cold War she heard another distant explosion preceded by a supersonic crack. The Scorch turned towards the source of the noise to investigate. A fatal flaw as Morgan rushed from her cover to scramble aboard the dying Scorch to yank out its energy cell.

As she robbed the Scorch of its power cell the machine could no longer safely regulate its damaged systems and supplement the failing energy field around its power core. This caused a quick and violent chain reaction in which the machine seemed to glow a blinding light from deep down in its core before blossoming into a fiery explosion, taking the pilot with it as the Titan overloaded. She shied away from the explosion, ignoring the temperature warnings that the Simulacrum's operating system was giving. Morgan then looked to the burning remains of the scattered Scorch then down to the power cell in her hands that gave of a brilliant green glow. She chuckled to herself triumphantly before radioing Wraith. "Hey, Wraith. I got a present for you…"


	5. Chapter 5

Lieutenant Saei grumbled a curse as she tried to drown out the screaming of Rifleman Kimler. He was an R-1, one of the lowest rungs on the chain of command. Despite this, Kimler had been one of the braver soldiers she had seen. He was always up for a challenge, and loved to face the enemy head on. Today, that mindset had cost him, Kimler had been unfortunate enough to catch several shards of shrapnel from an explosion. From what her younger sister had told her, Kimler had nearly been split in half, a large sheet of metal had nearly gutted the man, and several smaller pieces were lodged throughout his abdomen and chest cavity. None of the wounds were immediately fatal but he would need to have some surgery done on him if he was going to recover. That would take time, and unfortunately it was time they did not have.

With a scowl she turned back to her sister, "Shut him up." She ordered gruffly, shouldering her R-97 to keep suppressive fire on a group of mercenaries who were trying to flank them. A few heads hunkered back down as metal jacketed bullets peppered the area around them. She reloaded her weapon as another pilot, Liam, continued to keep them suppressed with withering fire from his Spitfire Light Machine Gun. Looking around the sports lounge they had taken refuge in, mostly due to the prefab's metal reinforced walls, she took note of some of the pilots and grunts who were trying to deal with the remaining Titan's near their building. She watched as a grunt fired an Archer Anti-Titan Missile out of a window before being blown up by his own rocket as it was reflected back at him. She flinched as gore and flecks of metal and concrete bounced around the room before getting back on her radio.

They had managed to finish off that Tone that "Wraith" had crippled, but their luck against Titans had waned. The Scorch had run off to follow Morgan, and now both of their whereabouts were unknown. Something the Lieutenant found incredible, given it was pretty damn hard to _loose_ _track_ of a Titan. The Ronin had moved off to engage Wraith who was camped out on a hill somewhere last her men reported. As much as she hated to admit it she could use Wraith's... _expertise_... in dealing death. Regardless she would rely on what she had.

"Beckett, I need you to get this Ion off our ass!" The Lieutenant barked into the radio. "Where's that one girl… Morgan?"

"We lost her…" Was the crackled reply over the radio. "I can distract em for you, no promises though."

"She's dead?"

"Unsure." There was a pause followed by an explosion just outside the building. She heard the Atlas-Class Ion turn away from their position and begin to fire upon the new threat. As it stomped away it simultaneously fired off one of its electric smoke canisters. This prevented a clear line of sight to the machine as well as forming a deterrent for anyone who wished to follow.

By the time the smoke cleared the Ion was nowhere to be seen. The Lieutenant grumbled but was grateful for the relief. A Titan was a little much for the group. They were armed but under-supplied, Morgan had prevented them from taking too much gear, she said Wraith was capable of handling the bigger threats. That plan was all well and fine… until they had went to engage the Crimson Order themselves. They had managed to evade death by three of the remaining Titans, and she had heard earlier that Morgan had managed to take down a Scorch. However, despite the feat they had taken two casualties at this point and had wounded. The mercenaries had them outnumbered and outgunned, it was only a matter of time until they were overrun.

"Listen up!" The Lieutenant shouted, turning to face the soldiers under her command. "We stay here, we die. We need to secure those civilians and get the hell out of here." She then turned to Liam.

"Liam, you take everyone to the town square, be careful of Titans and watch the windows. Don't get ambushed." She ordered, earning a nod from the pilot. "I'll try and distract the enemy and keep them drawn away from you."

"What happens if when we run into that Titan?" The Lieutenant's sister asked.

"You draw it away, keep the civilians out of harm's way." Lieutenant Saei replied. "Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am." Came the collective response from her soldiers.

"Good, stay safe out there." She grunted, moving for a window to cause her distraction. Feeling a hand on her shoulder she turned to see Liam.

"Hey…" He trailed off. "Be careful out there." Liam finished worry in his voice.

The Lieutenant frowned, but nodded her head in silence, shrugging out of his grasp as she vacated the building through the second story window.

There was a rush of force, a sense of vertigo and then the heavy thud of ground as the Militia Lieutenant dropped out of the window. She landed with a grunted roll and took off sprinting. As she ran she hefted a R-97 SMG and sprayed along the building and windows were the Mercenaries were trying to flank them earlier. As she stopped firing a few heads peered over at her as she dashed by. Running alongside several store fronts she jerked down an alleyway at the sound of gunfire chasing her. Soon she heard several heavy footfalls and jumpkits pursuing her, even as she weaved around several garbage dumpsters and stacks of crates and the occasional car as she made a beeline down the narrow alley. As she fumbled to replace the half spent magazine in her R-97 she shoulder checked a door, thankful that the flimsy sheet metal folded to the extent of breakage. Regardless, she could feel the dull throb in her shoulder.

She leapt up from the sprawl she was in on the floor in time to hear a heavy thud of boots on concrete as a Mercenary landed behind her, jumping from the roof to follow her into the building. Recovering just in time and just a split second faster than the Mercenary she loosed a burst of bullets into the crimson and black clad man. The staccato reports of gunfire echoing in the silent building. The hostile pilot jerked under each impact and fell backwards in a crumpled heap, punctuated by the sound of Kevlar and various equipment colliding with the floor. She let loose a small chuckle at the dead pilot before she began to jog up the flight of stairs that led to the second story of the robotics gallery she was in.

As she made her way up the long flight of stairs she felt searing pain as the sound of glass break could be heard and small bolts of blue energy pepper the stairs and walls around her. She stumbled to a knee awkwardly as she whipped around to gun down another Pilot who wielded a Volt Energy SMG. She took a wheezing breath as the pain in her lower chest flared. It didn't feel like the bolt of energy had punched through her chest, however the pain was excruciating. Gritting her teeth she chopped down another group of mercs, they weren't pilots but they were trying to kill her all the same.

As their bodies added to the casualties of the day she drowned out a scream of pain with a hissed growl. She turned back around and made her way back up the flight of stairs. Her head was now on a swivel as she became hypersensitive of her surroundings. Finding upstairs clear of hostiles she took a moment to rest. Taking several deep, painful breaths. As she rested she turned her head to the left with a startle. She pulled her weapon up to the face of a Titan. Upon seeing it unmoving and without operational lights active she relaxed with a relieved exhale.

Lieutenant Sari then stood from her reclined position and moved to inspect the machine. Careful of her surroundings she explored the machine. It was an Ogre, a chassis she was familiar with. She used to pilot one before she was assigned a Vanguard. She sighed as she drew up melancholic memories of XR-2770, he had seen her through several battles, he was one of her closest friends. Emphasis on "was", he was dead now. Wraith had seen to that. Shaking her head from the somber thoughts she managed to climb up the Titan to access the manual override panel, prying off the cover with her knife. A tank on the hidden release lever underneath the panel had rewarded her with a metallic pop followed by a pneumatic hiss. A small amount of pained effort was all she needed to pull the Ogre's main hatch up.

Inside, the machine was stuffy, the interior looked rather new, despite the aged smell and the fine layer of dust accumulated from disuse. Looking to the ignition slot she deflated slightly. Of course the keys weren't there. Her knife was also just a simple combat knife. It wasn't like the standard Data-Knife that pilots generally had, so hijacking the machine was not an option. Disappointed at the find she began to climb out when she considered checking one of the offices of the building.

Climbing out of the Ogre, she got to work, carefully prowling through the building as she searched the offices. As she cleared the first block of glass offices without luck she received a radio transmission. "Hey, LT, where the hell are you?!" Came a panicked voice awash with static.

"I found a Titan, I'm looking for a way to power it up. We could use the help." The Lieutenant gave out in measured sentences, trying not to relay her injured state to her squad.

"Well hurry the hell up! They've regrouped and they're hitting us hard." The voice barked over the sound of gunfire and the odd explosion.

"I'm trying." She gave out a short, clipped response. She rifled through another office, this one looked different from the others, most likely the manager's office from the wall of keys hanging up by a set of drawers and cabinets. She frowned at the aspect of looking through the numerous keys but took solace in the fact that she knew what she was looking for. Several moments of rifling through the jingling set of key rings she found what she was looking for. A long rectangular card with exposed diodes on the end. She yanked the key from the rack it was hanging on and began to retrace her steps, faltering every once in awhile when the pain in her chest flared up.

As she climbed back into the Ogre, she removed the clear plastic protective sleeve from the key and slotted it into the ignition interface on one of the control panels. A quick clockwise twist and she heard the rumbling flare of the powercore spool up, soon coming to a bassy whine. She pumped a fist in silent celebration. She ordered the hatch to close and as soon as the cockpit was sealed the viewports flickered to life. A million white dots coalesced into a glaring screen of white, the black Hammond Robotics symbol being the only relief in the screen as the machine's various systems booted up. Seconds later an odd warning appeared upon the viewport.

/ATTENTION/

OPERATING SYSTEM NOT FOUND

MANUAL OPERATION REQUIRED

CONTINUE?

[Y/N]

The Lieutenant had never piloted a Titan without its operating system. She had always assumed that Titans were manufactured with Operating Systems pre-installed. She shrugged. How hard could it be? It wasn't like she was armed, she just wanted to use the thing as a distraction at best. Besides, even an unarmed Titan was still a threat. She proceeded with the boot process as the screen faded to a real-time representation of her environment as the external cameras composited their feeds into a comprehensible image. Satisfied that machine at least responded appropriately to her commands she set off.

Morgan watched as Wraith's Northstar came ever closer to her position, stopping a few feet away from her. She presented the Battery to the pilot, shouting, "I got you a present, mostly fresh!" She joked.

"Why are you here?" Wraith asked, the usually ominous and raspy voice his helmet emitted amplified by his Titan's external speakers.

"Figured you needed help, now open up!" Morgan offered, striding up to the machine to pat on one of the big legs.

There was a short pause followed by a sigh, "Cell number four needs to be replaced." He said as the rear hatch of his Northstar opened where an array of six power cells were located. Morgan climbed up the back of the machine and located a scuffed "4" painted next to one of the cells. A quick twist and the cell slid right out, followed by a warning light blinking an angry red rapidly against the stark green of the other cells. Morgan's battery was shortly slotted back in, ceasing the warning light and being followed by the sound of a higher pitched humming. "Are you okay?" He asked during the silence.

"I knew you were a softy under that mean exterior." Morgan joked with a chuckle.

"No. Simulacrums are hard to come by. Especially ones that aren't full of bullet holes." He countered, turning his Northstar to look at the robotic shell incredulously.

"...I… oh… Well, yeah."

"Good. Where are the others?" Wraith drawled, even as Morgan climbed aboard the back of his Titan, almost as if she was rodeoing the thing like a giant mechanical beast.

"Really, Wraith?" She asked incredulously. "Just follow the explosions…" She responded as she shook her head.

Wraith grunted indifferently and began his trek towards the center of town. "Natalie. I've marked two Titans. Send the Atlas to pick up the scraps and put em on the dropship." He said as he guided the loping strides of his lanky Northstar ever closer to the sounds of conflict. Eventually Vi began to paint several targets of interest as they came within closer proximity. The most interesting of which were two clusters of white dots, of unidentified contacts. One was a larger cluster with a singular, massive red dot next to it. Most likely the citizens and the Titan watching them. The other was a similarly massive white dot, but interestingly enough there was a blue dot within said white dot.

"What's that?" Wraith asked, peering closer at the white and blue blob as they closed the distance even further.

His question was answered as an unpainted Ogre Titan was rocked backwards by a punch from an Ion before catching a laser from the Ion's shoulder mounted cannon. He ground his Northstar to a halt as he watched the scene unfold. "What the fu…" He mouthed as the Ogre was forced up against a building, bringing up a massive fist to the exposed center column of the Ion.

The Ion rocked backwards from the blow, stumbling as the Ogre placed both hands upon the Ion's Splitter Rifle, tearing the weapon away from the stunned Titan. The Ogre tossed the weapon away as it bum rushed the Ion.

"Pilot. I suggest we engage or move out of the way. Energy readings indicate that the Ion way utilize it's Laser Core." Vi intoned. "And I would very much like to be intact at the end of the day. That much radiation is bad for my paint." She joked.

"Right, kill them both." Wraith replied, switching to the 30mm autocannon strapped to the back of his Northstar's hips. He leveled the weapon and brought the bayonet down on the Ogre's arm, severing it at the elbow. A swift kick to the torso sent the Ogre stumbling back. Swiftly he shoved his Northstar's hand into the central optic of the Ion's chassis. The Laser Core couldn't operate properly if it didn't have the optical lenses to focus. There was a sound of crunching metal as he squeezed down to get a firm grip on the ball. This was followed by a screaming shriek of metal as the ball was ripped from the Ion's chassis. Chucking the mangled thing away he replaced the optic with the barrel of his chaingun, simultaneously sinking the tungsten bayonet into the cockpit. He squeezed the trigger, dumping twenty rounds into the machine before he punctured the power housing, causing a small detonation to rip through the machine, destroying the Ion. His Northstar suffered minor damage from the point blank explosion, owing the lack of damage to the modified shielding engine he had managed to slap together for his Northstar.

"That was dangerous, sir. I'd prefer if you kept me out of your death wishes." Vi said with a digital approximation of a sigh.

"Noted." He muttered as he stomped its way over to the Ogre was just now standing back up. He looked upon the damaged machine without pity. "It's a shame to put a Titan to waste." He said over the loudspeaker on his Titan's external audio system. "Don't move and I'll make this clean and quick." He offered.

"Wait! Wait!" The voice came from the Ogre as it threw up it's one good arm in defense. "I'm on your side!"

Wraith paused with a low, "I doubt it…" but relented. "Get out, now." He ordered.

"But I can help you!" She protested. "I can shield the civilians from the Mercenaries while you take down the last Titan." She offered.

Wraith had to admit that was a tempting offer. "Fine. Stay out of my way." He ordered, stomping away from the Ogre disinterestedly. Walking down an abandoned street he walked into the city square where several thousand civilians sat corralled, guarded by a Titan and what looked like two squads of Mercenaries. As he surveyed the scene he realized that he was in some sort of silent standoff with the Crimson Order's forces here.

"Wraith, we're getting into position. Keep stalling them." Morgan whispered through his COMMS.

"Wraith…!" The Titan drawled. "I'm surprised that you've thrown your lot in with the Militia." He heard, a smile in the voice. "Rumor is you hate those guys pretty bad." There was a pause before the cheery tone turned dark. "So tell me… what the hell are you doing here?"

"Everyone has a price…" Wraith chuckled back.

"Attention, Pilot, Titan Class Identified as ARES, caution is advised when confronting Titan. Recommended course of action, engage at a 5 to 1 handicap." Vi informed him. Wraith frowned. He had piloted one of those before. This one looked like it had been updated from the variant he had used though. Aside from the warpaint that had decorated the machine in an attempt to appear as menacing as possible, he noticed the thicker armor and heavier weapons as well as the thinner frame.

"Tell you what. You give me that custom Northstar of yours and maybe I won't kill you. You've put me in a tight spot, I'm going to get in trouble for all those Titans and Mercs you've killed. 's only right I get fair compensation." The voice cackled.

In response, Wraith leveled his 30mm autocannon.

"Fighting to the end, huh?" The voice asked incredulously. "Can't say I'm surprised… Let us see who the better pilot is then!" The pilot screamed as they began to open fire on Wraith and his Titan.

Wraith banked a hard left as he fired his dash thrusters, narrowly avoiding a salvo of missiles and gunfire. The other mercenaries who were trying to subtly flank Wraith were suddenly engaged by the motley crew of soldiers that Morgan had organized. Clear of the threat of being engaged by ground forces Wraith focused his attention on the Ares Titan before him. The Freelancer watched as the Ares ate drum after drum of 30mm ammunition, only managing to breach the machine's shield after three drums. Wraith on the other hand had taken moderate damage, his shield had been drained in a single blow from the Ares' shoulder mounted gauss cannon. Wraith scowled as he watched the Ares' armor absorb the 30mm armor with relative ease. He had spent the majority of this battle dodging and dropping the occasional Tether-Trap.

This was also upset by the conscious effort not to place the civilians in the line of fire or step on them. As he took another punishing blow from the Ares he began to curse when the captured Ogre shoulder checked the war machine, causing it to stumble into a nearby structure, crashing through the concrete, steel and glass building.

"MOVE!" Wraith barked to the Ogre as the dust was still settling. The moment he saw the Ogre begin to hobble away from the wreckage, Wraith keyed his Viper Flight Thrusters. The Northstar's quad engines screamed a deafening cry as they propelled the multi-ton machine skyward. As soon as he was forty feet above the ground he, unleashed every single rocket and missile at his disposal, showering the building in a relentless barrage of heavy cluster munitions, micro rockets and anti-armor missiles. As the building was engulfed in multiple explosions his Thrusters cut out, shutting down to prevent overheating. Before the dust even settled he was rocked by a brutal slug from a Gauss rifle.

Wraith screamed out in pain as molten sparks and metal showered his form inside the cockpit. "WARNING! PILOT, COCKPIT INTEGRITY COMPROMISED! PILOT, EVADE!" Vi blared through the cockpit. Wraith, distracted from the pain wasn't able to heed her warnings in time as another Slug struck the Northstar in the shoulder. The machine lurched from the blow, throwing Wraith off balanced as he slammed into the cockpit cover, cracking the glass viewports that covered the back of his cockpit hatch. "PILOT EVADE! ...WRAITH! EVADE!" Vi screamed at him again, he could hear the concern and fear in her digital voice. However, before he could reseat himself and properly respond he was hit with yet another Gauss slug as the Ares quickly stomped its way over to the damaged Northstar. "DISENGAGING MANUAL CONTROL!" He heard Vi state in time for the Northstar to attempt to rise as a massive metal foot filled the viewport as the Northstar was struck with a brutal kick to the cockpit. The viewports further fractured and shattered as the cockpit dented from the force of the blow. He watched—through a faceted viewport—as Vi tried to strike the Ares with her left arm as it loomed over the prone machine.

The Ares responded by catching her offending limb, and with a wail of tearing metal, yanked the appendage away from her torso, casually discarding the limb behind it. As a metal hand filled up the viewport and the clamp of metal on metal was heard Wraith noticed a message along the bottom of the viewport.

/CODE 00/CODE 00/CODE 00/

WARNING: EJECT! WARNING: EJECT!

ALERT: PROTOCOL - 01: INITIATED

SYSTEM: GOODBYE PILOT

"Auto-Eject systems initiated. It has been a pleasure, pilot." Vi spoke, with an unexpectedly calm and melancholic voice.

Wraith felt a rush of force and soon found himself sliding along his back as his ejector seat fired from the top of his Northstar. He watched as the Ares ripped the cockpit hatch from the Northstar, tossing it away as it prepared to stomp the remaining mass of the hulking war machine. Before the Ares could complete the action, the Ogre returned, once again checking the Ares, the machine stumbled before falling to ground, already unstable with one leg raised, poised to stomp the Northstar to death. As the Ares fell to the ground the Ogre raised a massive fist, bringing it down on the Ares' own cockpit several times. The Ares may have been heavily armored, almost impossibly so, but its frame weakened and demolished from the earlier salvo of missiles and rockets buckled under several tons of armored robotic frame. Despite this, the Ares continued to fight back, severely damaging the offending Ogre. And as the cockpit of the Ares was flattened the Ogre stood back up, pausing a moment to make sure it was no longer moving before turning towards Wraith.

Tearing his gaze from the mangled wreck that used to be his Titan he looked back up to see the Ogre increase its pace. He felt a pang of fear grip him momentarily causing the pilot to scrambled back in a panic, still on his back. "Morgan? Morgan!" He nearly wailed into the radio. Blessedly she was already acting on the transpired events.

The sound of several bursts from a Cold War Anti-Titan rifle were heard. Shortly following the Ogre was peppered with micro arc rockets, further crippling the wounded Titan. As Wraith regained control of his emotions and his footing he noticed the machine was only about a hundred or so feet away. Wraith began to backpedal rapidly. As he did so he fumbled for one of the few Firestars he kept with him. Grabbing hold of the four pointed disks he snapped off the thermite device, nailing the central optics in the center of its ball like housing.

Now blinded, the Titan slowed, no longer rampaging ahead. The slowed pace allowed Morgan to clamber aboard the Ogre, scrambling up the backside of the chassis to find a maintenance hatch. Digging her feet in and planting a hand to stabilize herself she removed the back panel with ease, granted superhuman strength due to her Simulacrum frame. The protective covering clattered away, inaudible over the combat still going on and the heavy thuds of the stomping Titan. Morgan peered inside the Ogre's inner workings before sifting through her gear to pull out one of the two satchel charges she liked to carry with her. Hefting the weighty package in hand for a moment she then forced the rectangular mass into the back of the Ogre's system access port. As she leapt away from the machine she reached for her detonator depressing the killswitch trigger rapidly in quick succession, detonating the charges while she was still airborne.

An angry cloud of orange, yellow and red hues blossomed from the back of the machine, soon to be consumed by black smoke and errant arcs of energy. The Ogre shuddered as it was engulfed in flames. Morgan watched on incredulously as it continued to forge ahead, towards Wraith. She began to panic, and fumble back for her Cold War when the Ogre fumbled. Stumbling to a knee as systems began to shut down the hatch opened for the Pilot, one of the ones Morgan had "recruited" leapt out, closing the distance faster than Wraith could pull up his R-201.

The female pilot delivered an axe kick to disarm Wraith of his primary weapon, the firearm clattering to the ground. Wraith replied with right hook, which the pilot caught, using Wraith's momentum to leave him sprawling on the ground. The moment the legendary pilot hit the ground he spun with the help of his jumpkit, sweeping the female pilot off her feet with blinding speed. Both stood up quickly, but Wraith was faster. Using this to his advantage he delivered a swift right hook to her kidneys followed by a left to her solar plexus followed by a brutal blow to the head. With a echoed crack of force Morgan watched as the female pilot's helmet blew apart from the force of the blow, a cloud of pressurized oxygen dispersing from the breakage. Wraith stood angry and adrenaline infused as the woman staggered for a moment then collapsed, unconscious. Wraith shook out his hand and rolled his shoulder. The majority of the blow was absorbed by the contact points on his knuckle guards, despite that, his hand was still very sore, as was his shoulder.

"Damn, Wraith…" Morgan muttered, walking over to the man as he loomed over the Militia Pilot. Her robotic optic systems confirmed that she was indeed still alive, unconscious, but alive. "Remind me not to challenge you to a fist fight…" She chuckled. There was a tense, awkward pause. "...So…" She began. "What are you going to do with her?" She asked, glancing over her shoulder to see some of her ragtag group reemerging from the sprawl of buildings that surrounded the city square. Some of them were escorting Crimson Order mercenaries. Others were supporting injured soldiers.

"Take _her,_ " Wraith spat, "and the rest of the group back to the ship." He sighed. "These guys don't need to see their saviors killing each other. I'll square things away here." Wraith ordered.

"Aye." Morgan replied, hefting the unconscious woman over her shoulder as if she weighed nothing. "See you back on the ship." She said before turning back towards Wraith, her voice serious. "I better see you back on the ship…"

"I'll be there. Keep her detained. Make sure the wounded get the medical attention they need." He replied in clipped sentences as he walked off.

Lieutenant Saei woke up in an empty room, an airlock to be precise, handcuffed to a chair. She looked to the inky void of space then to her handcuffed wrists attached to the metal chair she was in. "Fuck." She muttered defeatedly. Obviously she had failed if she was here. She was also sore across her torso, her face and her back. Letting out a growl in frustration and pain she slumped back in her chair, wincing at the contact but glad that the back had some sort of give to it.

She wasn't alone for long though as she heard the airlock hiss open. She tried to turn to see who it was when she felt a pitch of inertia as the chair was roughly drug out of the airlock before it was almost thrown against a nearby workbench. The amber glow of Wraith's helmet met her confused then angry face. "Tell me why I shouldn't kill you." He growled, the faint voice modulator built into his helmet turning his voice into an almost animalistic vocalization.

"I didn't kill you." She smirked.

"You damn well tried." He pressed on, pressing a P2011 into her solar plexus. The Lieutenant hissed at the sore contact but stared on, her resolute gaze unwavering. "What did you even hope to accomplish?" He asked incredulously. "You kill me, Morgan kills some of you. She alerts Natalie and they send Spectres and my Reaper to kill all your friends up here, then leave you all for dead down there. You obviously didn't think this through."

"I saw a chance and I took it. Is that any different from what you would of done?!" She nearly spat back.

"Absolutely." He scoffed, "I take into consideration all possible outcomes before I act. It's kept me alive so far. Others? Not so much."

She didn't grace him with a response, just a withering glare.

Wraith sighed deeply. "I would kill you… but I wouldn't want to waste the effort." Finished, he stood and began to walk away.

"So what about my injuries?" She yelled at him from across the room.

"You deserve them. I'll let you stew in 'em for awhile." He chuckled as he stepped out the room.

His jovial attitude died as quickly as it arose though. He walked over towards his Machine bay, where the damaged husk of Vi's chassis lay across a large portion of the floor. Natalie was here, tinkering about a sea of half assembled parts, seeing what was salvageable from Vi's violent final moments. Wraith nodded in greeting to Natalie who raised an eyebrow in response, her hands deep in a large internal component of his Northstar's powerhouse. Wraith made his way over to the mangled and badly damaged cockpit cover where her optics were located. Sighing at the sight, he pulled a knife from his boot and began to work at dislodging the giant ball of metal and glass that made up his Northstar's "eyes". After a few minutes of working away with his knife and a small array of tools he was able to remove the housing from the Cockpit cover. Gracefully the back of the housing was much easier to work with. A few magnetic clasps popped away after a modest amount of force, allowing him to get to the inner workings of the core. Inside of the housing was a fist sized, multifaceted sphere, covered in a lattice of crystalline support structures and transistors. Wraith let out a sigh of relief as the core was in pristine condition. A small, "VI-3195" was etched into one of the octagonal faces of the internal sphere. The AI core was a dull amber color. Underneath his helmet a faint, affectionate smile was on his face. Vi might still be alive, if he was able to boot her back up. The newer Titan AI cores were not designed to be "turned off" or without power for long periods of time.

"Got her core out?" Natalie asked, glancing over to Wraith for the briefest of moments.

"Yeah. Any of the other Titan's online?" He asked, gently rolling the orb in his hand.

"Aside from the Atlas? No." She said, distracted. "If you link her up to that it might damage her. She wasn't designed for that type of system.

Wraith frowned for a moment before smiling slyly. He gently set down the core, making sure it wouldn't roll off the table before jogging off. Natalie looked on confused for a moment, before she shook her head and returned to her task at hand. Wraith returned a moment later, dragging a humanoid android. She frowned at the sight. "You're not really going to put her core into a sex-bot are you?" She asked incredulously. "Where did you even get that?"

"It was in that cargo crate with the Spectres and the Simulacrum we bought off that scrapper, remember?" Wraith explained, opening the back of the inactive machine.

"Oh yeah…" Natalie blushed, averting her eyes from the...sensual shape of the robot. She momentarily looked to her own bust, she wasn't underendowed in any sense of the word, but the Android was… almost excessive.

"Will this even work?" Wraith asked cautiously.

"I mean, it does look newer, so there's a pretty good chance if it has a universal adaption system." Natalie replied.

"Great." Wraith grunted, once again gingerly picking up Vi's AI core. Carefully he slotted the orb back into the Android, there was a click followed by a brief flickering of service lights as the core was slotted into place. He plugged a nearby workshop tablet into one of the internal service ports of the machine. He received various feedback readings, all of them reporting in the green. Several software packages had to be updated, which Wraith downloaded, as well as a handful of compatibility drivers. When he was finished with that he keyed for the machine to seal and boot up. He removed the device from her internal access port and watched as the rear hatch automatically began to close. He spun her back around, facing the cavernous space and waited. Natalie had also paused from her tinkering to watch.

There was a soft whine and hum of internal systems booting up before those quieted down. This was followed by a subtle twitch of all of the android's joints. What followed was an explosive, animated response. "PILOT EJE-!" The android started, she still sounded like Vi but with a markedly more human quality.

Wraith, overcome with relief displayed a rare outburst of emotion as he swept her up in a hug. Vi, obviously still confused and quite startled seized up. "P-pilot?" She asked timidly. "Whe-What happened?" She then turned to look to her pilot.

"Thank god you're okay." He exhaled shakily.

"I take it we surviv…" She trailed off, looking at the partially disassembled mass of her former body. "Is that me? My body?" She asked her voice soft and low.

"Yeah… you saved me." He said, gazing over to follow her own gaze. "You okay?" He asked.

"I am unsure. I am currently experiencing sensory feedback overload." Vi informed. "Also, I have detected several significant changes to my programming." She said as she cocked her head to look at Wraith.

"Oh… sorry." He apologized, releasing her from his extended embrace.

She looked at him then back down to her own body. "I have the form of a human female? Calculations have determined that my combat effectiveness has been exponentially lowered."

"That's not a… ahem… combat frame." Wraith coughed.

"You're a sex-bot Vi." Natalie laughed. "Now you can have sex with your Pilot you adore so much." She joked.

Vi looked on shocked before her flawlessly sculpted face lapsed into a scowl. "I see that I can now process and display emotions…"

Wraith let out a chuckle, causing Vi to look over to him. "Let's get you dressed huh? As much as I don't care what you guys do or don't wear around here… let's at least try to appear civilized to these Militia, alright?" He offered, holding out a hand for Vi.

"Yes, pilot." Vi replied, taking his hand and attempting to stand before buckling forward awkwardly. Wraith was there to catch her from falling on her face, and looked on, an amused smile hidden behind his helmet. "I will have some difficulty adjusting to this frame." She said as she attempted to stand again. With marked trouble she and Wraith slowly made their way up to the crew quarters at the front of the ship, as she left the area Natalie heard Vi complain, "Human legs are horrible, I don't know how you put up with it."

The barely audible chuckled response from Wraith brought a smile to Natalie's face. He deserved to be genuinely happy.

"Pilot… Wraith…" Vi said as as Wraith looked for suitable clothes for her to wear. The AI had already taken the liberty to wear his "underwear" as he had called it. She was still confused as to why humans wore so many layers. "Thank you… for saving me. I'm glad to see that you value your expendable equipment as such."

This caused Wraith to turn around with intensity, a slight frown on his face. "You're _not_ expendable. None of my crew is." He corrected her.

"I…" Vi paused, taking a moment to make sense of these foreign emotions that humans were constantly bombarded with. "Yes, pilot."

There was an awkward silence about the two as Wraith tore through his clothes, looking for something of suitable size given her… voluptuous physique. "Here." He said, offering her a pair of black sweat pants and a off grey T-shirt.

"Thank you, pilot." She said as she got dressed, with a little assistance from Wraith. "What shall we do next?" She asked, tilting her head at the pilot.

"You can explore the ship if you want, meet the crew. Just stay away from the Militia." Wraith offered. "I'm going to check up on our 'guests'." He sighed, already dreading what he would have to tolerate for the rest of the evening.

"Very well, Pilot. Stay safe. I will use our neural link to communicate while we are apart." Vi nodded, electing to stay in her Pilot's room and peek through his things. After all, curiosity was new to her.


	6. Chapter 6

**Sorry about the long break between chapters. Summer semester for my college classes have been rough and I've little time to write creatively. Hopefully a longer chapter will make it up to you guys. Let me know of any feedback/ideas/criticisms you guys have. Thanks for reading!**

 **Edited for consistency issues.**

Wraith sighed as he entered the modest medical bay his ship had. He had entered armed. There were several Militia captives allowed to work on the wounded. His Crew had the medical experience, barring Zero, to provide standard care. Despite this however, they had neither the manpower or the desire to provide such aid. He would, however, allow the Militia to tend to their own wounded. He looked over the working soldiers, hands and arms covered in various amounts of blood and bodily fluids. Wraith walked over to where a pair of soldiers were working away on another. "Kimler" was his name, if Wraith remembered correctly. The young man was deathly pale. It looked as if someone had taken a carving knife to the boy's torso.

"Will he make it?" Wraith asked.

"Surprised you care." Came back the angry but distracted response.

"I don't…. Don't waste my supplies on a dead man." He frowned.

The medic growled in frustration. "Listen... I don't know… He might make it... he might not." The man explained.

"Fine." Wraith was short, turning his attention to the other medic. "Do _you_ think he'll make it?"

Startled, the young man stuttered a fumbled response. "I-I,... Y-yes… sir. He-he'll make it…" There was a sheepish pause, "...sir." The young man nodded meekly, quickly averting his gaze to the injured man .

"Good. Let me know if that changes." Wraith nodded.

"Y-yes sir." The young man stuttered. This earned a muted smile from the man.

With quick glance around his Med-Bay, Wraith made plans to check on the wounded over the next couple of days. He also took precautions to make sure that the wounded and their attendants were constantly monitored at all times. He managed to get Vi wirelessly connected to his ship and the various systems aboard his ship again. She had partitioned herself to simultaneously control the Spectres Wraith had at his disposal, watching the Militia as they worked and searching them as they went and came.

Vi had also taken time to learn from Wraith. She learned what most of her emotions were and how to act more humanlike. She had also learned about her own body as well, feeling much more comfortable in her new frame. Aside from her slightly synthetic appearance she would be able to pass as a human. A slightly awkward, sculpturesquesly well endowed human, but a human nonetheless.

Wraith, in the meantime, had informed the Militia leaders of the current situation and as to why they weren't in a warp jump to Militia space. Some of the internal components of his drive had started to overheat and subsequently melt or fail. Now it would be a slow haul consisting of a few weeks instead of a short couple of days. This earned a handful of complaints from everyone, especially Gates.

"You're bluffing right? Buying time until the IMC or some other arseholes come and intercept us?" The commander of the 6-4 accused.

"No. You hired me—paid me—to do a job. I'll stand by my word." Wraith sighed tiredly, this was the fourth such accusation this week. "Do you really have nothing better to do than accuse me?" He almost laughed, finding the entire situation a little ridiculous.

Sarah Briggs was the one to respond. "Sorry about her Wraith. But you have to understand, in the Militia we're people of opportunities… not contracts." She attempted to diffuse the situation.

"I'll believe you when you bring our Lieutenant back!" Gates barked, anger on her face and in her voice.

"Afraid I can't do that. She's being punished. For trying to _kill_ me." Wraith snarled, a malicious smile on his face.

"I'm surprised you haven't killed her yet." Briggs commented, eyebrows peaked.

"I'm tempted to… but I want to enjoy this." Wraith chuckled darkly.

"Well. I would say 'don't do it', but then again I know how to hold a grudge." Barker chuckled. At the incredulous looks the ex-IMC veteran caught he added, "Of course there isn't a thing that can't be solved with a discussion over some good moonshine." He smiled warmly taking a small swig from his canteen. Wraith had learned that it was easier to give the man alcohol rather than deal with a grumpy—almost bipolar—manchild.

Wraith simply grunted.

With his business here concluded, he nodded his head and left. As he cycled through the airlock he considered Barker's words. Perhaps he had a point. However, as he considered these words he found himself absentmindedly wandering back to his quarters. Letting out a soft sigh as he shook his head of his thoughts, he opened the door to find the room in a scene of total chaos. Many of his items had been taken out and arranged neatly, all according to color, shape and size. Every space of his modestly sized room had some sort of item or personal object of his strewn about.

In the middle of this mess was Vi, cataloging everything. She turned her head to look at Wraith, a smile gracing her features as she looked at her pilot. Wraith grumbled, his anger at the situation draining away at the childlike innocence she was displaying. She was excited and curious, and Wraith found the situation odd, but heartwarming.

"Hello, pilot!" Vi beamed, standing up to greet the pilot.

"Hello…" He trailed off as he looked about the room. "What's this," he motioned with a sweep of his arm, "all about?"

"I have been categorizing all of your belongings as I find information about them on the internet." Vi reported, smiling as she moved to the next item on her agenda. "It is a fun learning experience."

"Uh huh…" Wraith murmured in wonder, simultaneously fighting the urge to laugh.

"I had no idea about the scope of information and inventions humans have made. You are truly fascinating." She said, sharply turning to look at her pilot.

"I guess…" Wraith shrugged. "Just make sure you put everything back where it was, okay?" He asked as he adjusted his gear, regretting his decision to keep it on.

"Yes, pilot." She replied before turning back to her next item of interest.

Wraith sighed as he left the room, deciding that things were okay at the moment and he could take a short break. Running a mental checklist of things he thought he had to handle and coming up empty, Wraith decided to head down into his cargo bays to deposit his gear. He had made it to the end of the hall when he was hailed over the ship's Public Addressing system. Wraith groaned, running a hand down the front of his helmet.

"Hey...uh… Wraith, you have an urgent request from Vinson Dynamics, it's waiting for you in the bridge." It was Zero's voice distracted as usual.

With a hiss of frustration, he muttered a quick, "Godfuckindammit…" under his breath, moving towards the bridge. A brisk, frustrated walk later and he was standing in his bridge, looking over his communications console, reading an urgent missive from Vinson Dynamics.

URGENT: EMERGENCY TRANSMISSION 716D-H9961-VD-SW

BEGIN AUTOMATED TRANSMISSION:

FACILITY: SIERRA-WHITE UNDER SIEGE. MILITIA COMBATANTS PRESENT.

SENSITIVE DATA/EQUIPMENT/RESEARCH/PROTOTYPES AT RISK.

REQUESTING IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE. COMPENSATION NEGOTIABLE.

SITUATION DIRE. SECURITY SYSTEMS HAVE BEEN COMPROMISED.

FACILITY COORDINATES ATTACHED.

[ATTACHMENT]

Wraith simply hummed lowly to himself as he read through the message, comparing the coordinates attached to their current location and their projected flight path. It would be a possible pit stop. It was along the flight path to the nearest Militia outpost, however he had to take into consideration that the only Titan he had available to him was not outfitted for combat and that if the Militia was beating back Vinson Dynamics' considerable defenses there would be little he could feasibly offer. Not to mention the problem of his "captives" potentially finding out that he would be killing even more Militia. They might try to mutiny and contact the attacking Militia forces as well. However, Vinson Dynamics did say that they would be willing to negotiate payment, he could leverage that.

Against his better judgement, he agreed to answer Vinson Dynamics' request. "Zero, I'm sending you coordinates. Get us there, undetected." Wraith turned from his console as he uploaded the navigational coordinates to the pilot's console.

There was no response from Zero aside from a subtle shift in inertia. He looked over to the chair she resided in, the massive bulk utterly eclipsing her curled up form. Taking a silent sigh he moved to leave the bridge, saying "Keep me updated." A noncommittal grunt was her only response.

* * *

Lieutenant Saei struggled in her bonds for a moment, repeating another countless attempt at freeing herself. As she went slack, finding the actions futile and her bonds strong as ever, the airlock behind her hissed open. She frowned, seeing the reflection of Wraith in the glass across from her. Setting her jaw and suppressing the urge to yell or sigh she looked ahead, unmoving. Wraith was silent as well, the only sound and indication that he was doing something was the heavy footsteps that stopped at the back of her chair.

"You'll be free soon." Wraith rumbled, his voice modulated into an ominously wispy growl. The Lieutenant frowned, she hated these clipped responses "Wraith" spoke in. Aside from that it sounded like he was up to something. "Try anything..? You're dead." Wraith muttered again.

There was a clicking, followed by a heavy metallic thud as handcuffs fell away. Instinctively, she brought her hands up, rubbing at her sore wrists. "Deja Vu, huh?" She joked lamely.

"For you, maybe." Wraith responded.

"Right." The Militia officer deadpanned. "So what did you free me for?" She huffed, scowling and irritated.

"We're going to talk." Came back his distorted reply.

"You don't peg me as the talkative type…" She muttered, trying to mask her building skepticism.

"I can be accommodating."

"Fine."

"So how long do you plan on trying to kill me?" Wraith asked levelly as he folded his arms and leaned against a wall.

"As long as we're enemies." She smiled back.

"We don't have to be."

At this she frowned, "I'm not defecting, and neither are you."

"Not what I meant." Wraith chuckled, his modulator giving him a dark, inhuman quality to his voice. "I'm just here to fulfill a contract."

"You're good at that aren't you?" She joked despite the condescending tone of her voice.

"Anyways…"Wraith muttered, ignoring her jab at him, continuing on. "I'll be making a stop. Might be there for a few days. Let your… buddies… know." Wraith said, nodding his helmeted head in the direction of the Militia captives.

The Lieutenant frowned, but agreed. However, she did ask her own question. "Who are you. Really?" She almost pleaded.

"Don't remember much of my life." He surprisingly answered. "This is who I am."

The Militia officer was silent for some time, processing what Wraith had told her. Eventually she looked up at him, desperation in her eyes. "C-can… can I see your face? Please?" She expected him to reject her request like he had similarly done.

"Persistent one aren't you? What is this to you?"

"It could mean everything to me." She muttered, hopeful that he would grant her request.

"...I'll think about it... Come on, let's get you back to your band of misfits." He replied, shepherding her back to where the rest of the Militia we're being held.

The two were awkwardly silent for the entire trip to the airlock leading to Cargo Bay Three. The Lieutenant had her head covered once again, only having the sack removed after the airlock had completed it's cycle. Wraith had then guided her back to where Briggs, Barker and Gates were conversing. At the sight of one of their officers returning their own conversation died out.

"As promised. Your Lieutenant." Wraith presented. "More or less in one piece." He grinned to no one else's benefit but his own.

"You okay Lieutenant?" Briggs asked, placing a hand on the younger woman's shoulder.

"I'll have some bruises, but I'm fine." She explained, repeating herself when her concerned squadmates and siblings questioned her as well.

"Good." Gates muttered, glaring at their captor.

Ignoring her withering glare, Wraith began to remove himself from the situation when the Militia Lieutenant stopped him by speaking up. "Wraith, please." He could hear the desperation in her voice.

"Why is this so important?" He halted, turning just enough to look over his shoulder.

Taking this as a denial of her request, the mood on her scarred face dropped. "If you were married, you'd understand." She muttered.

Wraith might have had a foggy recollection of his history, but he could recall being married and then anger. "I was…" he managed to get out, struggling to contain a sudden, volatile flare of emotion.

There was an awkward silence, broken by Barker. "So you weren't always this intense? What happened?"

"I lost her to her first love." Wraith rumbled darkly struggling to keep his emotions in check.

"Harsh." Barker offered. "Another man?" He asked curious.

"The Frontier." Wraith answered.

Barker let out a low whistle. "Harsh."

"I-I'm not asking much…" The Lieutenant asked softly, trying not to have the man deny her request due to his current emotional state.

Wraith turned to look at her, staring in silent, frustrated consideration. After what seemed like an impossibly long passage of time, the pilot relented. Placing his hands upon his helmet, the pilot gave a slight twist, followed by a pop of a seal and a soft hiss of pressure. His viewport blackened as his helmet powered down, leaving him briefly blind as the protective headgear was removed. He placed his helmet in the pit of his arm as he affixed a stern glare towards the woman.

The woman in question, drew a gasped breath, covering her mouth with her hand as tears began to well in the corner of her eyes. "I...you're...I-I knew it." She struggled for words, as emotions tore her apart. "...W-why?" Was the only real response she could give, "Why did you lie to me?" She finished with a sniffle and a soft voice.

"I didn't." Wraith said shortly, in order to keep his own suddenly strange surge of emotions in check.

"Y-you...you told me that my husband was gone." The Lieutenant countered.

"He is." Wraith muttered, moving to place his helmet back on his head as he walked away. The more he looked at the woman the more familiar she seemed, and with that familiarity came unpleasant ones.

"So what? That's it?!" She choked.

At this Wraith could no longer keep his temper in check. He wheeled around, furious and barked, "What the hell am I supposed to do!?"

Shocked, the woman lost her voice for a moment, giving a false start before replying with a shaky. "...You could stay…" She said with uncharacteristic meekness.

"Right. Like you did?" Wraith scoffed angrily.

At a loss for words, all she could offer was a muted, "...I'm sorry."

"Two years and all you can say is 'sorry'?" Wraith sighed before stomping away, roughly slapping his helmet back over his head.

The Lieutenant, his wife, had to take a seat, knees suddenly weak as the strength drained from her body. From there she placed her heavy head into her hands and wept silently, something she hadn't done since two years prior.

The others around her stood at a loss, their Lieutenant was a wall, she rarely showed emotion and when she did it was usually anger. To her allies she was an unbreakable wall of strength, so to see her broken down like this was unsettling. Even her siblings had been shaken up, while they remembered the more innocent elder sister from their childhood, they too had gotten used to this hardened caricature of their sister.

The Lieutenant's younger sister, Aeryn, was the first to offer comfort. She placed a hand on her back and sat down next to her, offering silent support and comfort. The Lieutenant stiffened at the contact momentarily before letting out a shuddering, almost animal noise of a strangled cry of a sob. Leaning into the gentle contact.

Aeryn was silent, she knew her sister preferred silent support rather than verbal. Aeryn moved her hand to give her sister's shoulder a gentle yet firm squeeze. She felt some of her sister's tension bleed from her. A few sniffles came from the Lieutenant until Briggs sat down next to their currently highest ranking officer.

After a few false starts Briggs spoke up. "I'm... sorry… Lieutenant. This is a terrible thing no one should go through…" Briggs offered before continuing on to say, "While tragic, we need you to use this situation to our benefit, w—"

Wheeling on Briggs with a look of utter disgust and contempt. "I. Am not. Going to throw what's left of my marriage away for the Militia." She growled defiantly before stomping off.

"Smooth." Barker teased, earning a frown from Briggs.

* * *

Wraith frowned as his R-201 locked open again, magazine spent and internal components smoking. This was the fifth time in the last three minutes. He had taken down two squads of Militia soldiers and a small handful of pilots from his perch atop of a Vinson Dynamics warehouse, beating back another wave of misguided rebels. As he deftly slapped another magazine home he poked his head up above the lip of the roof he noticed the Militia falling back to regroup. "They're falling back!" Someone barked.

Wraith took this moment to go over his gear, taking inventory of his remaining ammunition and equipment when he received a private transmission from a well dressed woman, a tasteful Vinson Dynamics pin attached to her collar. "Mercenary. I need you to report to the southern research facility. You're one of our more experienced Mercenaries we could assemble on such a short notice, and as such, we need your expertise in providing some additional information for our Titan AIs." She ordered coolly. "It's imperative that we get these Titans in fighting condition or we will _all_ die in the Militia's next assault." The woman explained.

Wraith had no doubt about her statement as he acknowledged the woman and complied with her request. She was the one writing him a check after all. He looked at the coordinates she had sent him and referenced his nap before jumping off the roof. He pulsed his jumpkit to slow his fall and landed with a mild jostle. Soon he found himself jogging just short of a sprint down an off-black asphalt road, past the reinforced facades of the Vinson Dynamics campus. Two minutes later and he was standing inside a tall metal, glass and concrete tower. And as he was passed through security he marveled at the sheer expansiveness of the entire facility.

The interior was tastefully decorated with splashes of wood flooring and paneling, complimented by polished tiles and brushed metal frames and trims. In the middle of the tower, past glass walled offices and sealed doors was a massive cavernous space. There was a massive hole in the middle of the building, where the facility extended downwards several stories. It was easily more than a hundred feet to the bottom of the chasm. And at the bottom was a precession of Titans, the majority of which still had their testing paint schemes applied to their chassis. Wraith assumed those were the machines they wanted help with.

"Mercenary, glad to see you value being punctual. It is a rare quality among your peers." There was a pause punctuated by a muted, amused chuckle. "You will find an elevator that will be able to take you to the lowest floor. We will meet each other shortly. Please do not delay, we do not have the luxury of time."

Wraith shrugged, and leapt over the railing that kept people from falling to their death at the bottom of the long drop. He felt the vertigo combined with a screaming rush of inertia as he rapidly approached terminal velocity and the ground. He grunted from a sudden change in inertia as he fired his jumpkit on full burn, effectively stopping his free fall six feet from the ground. Landing with another grunted exhale of breath and the heavy thud of an equipment clad body he nodded to the woman he was supposed to meet, before glancing back up to where he had jumped from.

"I'm here." He offered as an introduction. "You said we were short on time?"

"Yes... Glad to see you can think outside the box…" She muttered, still bewildered by his unorthodox method of reaching the bottom floor.

"Just tell me what you need me to do." He said in his usual modulated tone.

"All of these Titans are wirelessly hooked up to a combat data bank." The woman began as she led Wraith deeper into the facility, past the assembled Titans. "Their combat data is quite good, extensive and vigorous. Despite this, simulations never compare to actual experience." She explained, walking briskly, the loud click clack of her heels echoing in the silent hallways. "We are going to scan your brain and upload your own combat experience and training to the Titans. This should make their combat performance exponentially better since we do not have enough experienced and trained staff to utilize all of our assets." She finished as she keyed in a lengthy security code into a nearby wall panel, promoting a large, reinforced door to open up to a sprawling, highly advanced laboratory.

Wraith gawked at the setup. A majority of the stuff was so advanced it looked alien. And given Vinson Dynamics' recent forays with the IMC's Ares Division, he wouldn't be surprised if it was.

"While I would love to show you around, we have pressing matters to attend to." She said shortly, dismissing the array of highly advanced equipment as if it were a commonplace occurrence. "This way." She directed motioning for him to follow. "Remove your helmet and take a seat." She instructed, and when the mercenary complied she added, "Good, now, place this harness on your head." She ordered, handing him a dome shaped apparatus covered in several bundles of cables and sensors.

Wraith looked the item over for a brief moment before slipping the flimsy looking piece of equipment over his head. He heard the tapping of keys behind him and a few muttered words from the woman as she worked away. He ignored that however due to the burning sensation at his temples that slowly spread over his cranium. This was contrasted by a piercing cold at the base of neck. Both of these sensations were soon buried by a vein-like cold that crept through head, before exploding in a crashing wave of mercury, drawing an uncomfortable gasp from the grizzled veteran. Meanwhile his body was uncertain of what to do with the barrage of mixed signals, as he constantly went slack and tense, mouth agape as he drew in labored, hyperventilated breaths.

"Ah, you have an active neural-link! This is an excellent resource." The Vinson Dynamics representative mused. Her eyes roved across the expansive trove of information and combat experience his mind had to offer, a smile creeping its way on to her face. She did find it strange that the majority of his recent memories were combat based, as if the man had no other aspects to their life. Intrigued, she opened a second process to find out why, becoming more and more interested as she found that the majority of his conscious memory was nothing but warfare.

As the relevant and useful data transferred, she found the culprit, several memory patterns that matched the "regeneration" process pilots would sometimes undertake. However the oldest of these patterns looked off. And the others had simply built on top of it. As a means of repayment for the crucial information the mercenary was providing she worked to fix these problems. Her work wasn't perfect, he would definitely need some minor work to be completely free of any lingering problems, but he would be able to recall and remember his former life.

Finishing her rare act of charity she had a momentary wave of concern as his neural activity nearly tripled for a few moments before stabilizing. She breathed a sigh of relief as the both of her mental processes concluded without any causes for concern. Satisfied with her work and his provided information, she began the quick process of disconnecting the pilot mercenary. She watched as his vitals slowly fell to normal levels and closed out the mental pathway.

Wraith blinked a few times before groaning at the worst headache he had ever felt. He sat up with his head in his hands.

"Thank you, mercenary. However we are not out of the fire yet." She promptly reminded him.

He grunted. "Right." With a weary sigh he forced his helmet over his head, nerves numbly tingling from overstimulation.

"As you negotiated, you wanted a Titan instead of payment." She briefed as she led him deeper into the facility. "I thought it strange that you would want a machine without an AI, but seeing your neural link, it's all making sense now." She smiled briefly. "I think, because of the value of your combat data, I can justify giving you this." She presented, sweeping her arm to a white mass of metal.

Wraith gazed at the Titan, lit by a series of spotlights along the ground and a series of work lights along the ceiling. "Is that a—"

"Not quite. Vinson Dynamics has worked with Hammond Robotics to improve upon the Militia's Vanguard design. It's extremely modular, versatile, deadly, _and_ cost efficient. We've called it Monarch. A Titan to rule all others."

Wraith whistled in appreciation. "Amazing work. Though I shouldn't expect differently from Vinson…" he chuckled with excitement.

The woman smiled at the praise. "This is the standard setup." She gestured, "Slightly lighter armor than the standard Lastimosa Armories Vanguard. XOBTR-16 Chaingun. Rocket pods, and a shield generating energy cannon round out its arsenal."

"Good to know." He said as he began to work his way into the cockpit, opening the main hatch on the machine.

"As a recap you are to keep the facility—and our other Monarchs—out of the Militia's hands or die trying." She ordered firmly.

"I'll uphold my part of the contract." Wraith grunted as the machine booted up.

"I'll hold you to that." She responded. "Make the Militia regret today." She ordered, keying for a service elevator to take the mercenary to the surface.

During the uneventful ride up, he contacted Vi who was waiting aboard Wraith's ship up in orbit. "Glad to hear your voice, pilot."

"Vi, I need you to remote link to this channel: 9A73RT-1662-M-VD. Authorization code: X711YU."

There was a pause before Vi replied with a punctual, nearly robotic, "Affirmative pilot. Standby."

Wraith winced in pain as his neural link reactivated, shortly followed by Vi's voice over cockpit speakers. "Remote link, successful." There was a pause and a rapid flickering of lights and screens as she acclimated herself to her new "body" before she added, "Quite the upgrade."

Wraith hummed in agreement, trying to drown out the mind numbing migraine he was suffering through.

"Are you okay, pilot?" Vi asked, her concern sounding much more natural compared to her usual self.

"I should be fine. Just watch my back out there." He dismissed, as the heavy doors above him slid apart to spill bright sunlight into the angled elevator shaft.

The display compensated for the sudden change in light, darkening slightly as the elevator let out to a massive concrete platform with several cranes and stacks of cargo containers. He watched as Vi pinged his ship and several other satellites, creating a crude, but effective map in the corner of his viewport's HUD. Several red dots appeared on the periphery of his map as several figures were highlighted in red outlines, moving throughout the environment. Wraith maneuvered his new Titan towards the marked hostiles. As soon as he saw the cluster of infantry he dumped one of the six rocket pods at his disposal, enveloping the infantry in a series of roiling clouds of death and fire, sending shrapnel, dirt, fire and bloodied chunks of flesh scattering away from the thunderous epicenters.

The single Titan escorting the infantry spun around, throwing up a particle shield. Wraith dashed through the blue, hexagonal semi-solid construct to slam an armored fist into the hull of a Militia Tone. His Titan's shield tanked through the retaliatory fire Tone responded with, even as it slid back from the force of the blow. Wraith responded in kind with fire from his Monarch's XO-16, doubling up with a salvo from one of his remaining rocket pods. Both Titans exchanged blows, the Tone eventually breaking contact, dashing behind a nearby building.

Wraith took this moment to reload his chain gun. "Vi, track that Tone."

"Already on it." Vi replied crisply.

"Where is it?"

"It's making its way around the back of the building." His AI informed.

Taking this information, he turned his Monarch around in time to see a beam of crimson scythe through the space just behind the building, followed by a prompt explosion.

"Enemy Tone eliminated." Vi said shortly, just as an advanced variation of an Ion Titan moved past Wraith's own Titan.

Wraith had recognized the machine, something along the lines of a prototype design for a more advanced Ion, designated as an Ion Prime. It had featured larger, more powerful energy capacitors, and a much stronger energy core to power a more destructive Laser Core. The machine, apparently an Auto-Titan stomped its way past him, towards more additional combat threats located around the perimeter of the facility. Vinson Dynamics was apparently hard at work with Hammond Robotics in making a more powerful war machine for their highest bidders, and that work had paid off. He watched as the Ion Prime cut a path of death and destruction through two more Titans and a small detachment of light infantry. It was an impressive display for an Auto-Titan.

"Glad they're on our side." He muttered as he watched the machine work, following in its destructive wake. His Monarch made up the distance quickly and soon he was working in tandem with the machine, eliminating several pilots and dozens of grunts. As he prepared to move on, he received a frantic transmission over the radio.

"THIS IS LANCE 3-4 WE ARE TAKING HEAVY FIRE FROM MULTIPLE HOSTILE TITANS! NEED IMMEDIATE FIRE SUPPORT! WE ARE AT RISK OF BEING OVERRUN!" One of the mercenary groups, on the west side of the facility had hailed over the emergency wartime channel.

Wraith frowned, and began to move to assist, weaving his way through buildings and the occasional abandoned building.

"Lance 3-4, this is Phalanx 2-2. We are unable to assist at this time, our forces are at maximum bear, over."

"Lance 3-4, standby for Titan support, I'm on my way." Wraith replied, rolling his eyes at the response from Sierra-White's official security detachment. It was typical of the majority of security detail jobs. The people who were paying you to protect them would not help you protect them. They would rather waste other resources than their own. And since this behavior was expected, Wraith was unfazed by the lack of support Vinson Dynamics was willing to offer.

As Wraith worked his way around to the back of the facility, passing under a cliff that rested on top of a portion of the facility, back towards a shallow beach side area, he saw the attacking Militia forces as well as the desperate mercenaries holding them back. At the same time he received a private transmission from the security chief of the facility.

"This is Security Chief Havara, you are to identify yourself immediately. We were unaware of any mercenary forces in possession of Titans." The voice barked.

"It doesn't matter who I am. I'm on your side. Besides, if you cowards don't want to protect your own facility then let me do my job."

"The security of this facility is my responsibility! You are to identify yourself, _immediately_ or—"

"You obviously don't care about this facility too much if you're willing to allow one of your defensive lines be overrun." Wraith interrupted. "So I suggest you shut up and let me do my job." Wraith snapped back, immediately closing the channel. Wraith let out a heavy sigh of frustration. There was then a brief stretch of silence, save for the stomping of his Titan's loping gait.

Unfortunately, calm silence had no place on a battlefield. This point was punctuated by a stream of bullets whizzing past his chassis. Wraith let out a stifled string of curses as he dashed to the left, avoiding a cloud of bullets that chopped through the air where he was moments before. As he sighted one of the two Militia Ogre-Class Legions his Monarch was struck from a distant opponent. His shield cushioned much of the blow but was unable to completely protect his Titan.

"Shields at twenty-one percent. Hostile Northstar marked." Vi informed him, adding, "Warning we are outnumbered three to one. I suggest we carefully pick our battles."

Wraith muttered a frustrated, "...Fuck…" as he snapped off a shot from his energy cannon, striking a Legion and siphoning enough energy to recharge his shields. He followed up with a barrage of gunfire from his XOBTR-16 and another salvo of rockets. He frowned when the Legion activated it's defensive gun shield, absorbing and negating most of the damage.

As the Legion spooled its chaingun up to firing speed Wraith was able to dash out of the way again, dodging another deadly hail of bullets and narrowly avoiding another plasma slug from the Northstar. Wraith chose then to engage the infantry instead of wasting ammunition trying to whittle down the formidable defense of the Militia Titans. He targeted the first group of olive clad soldiers who were trying to bypass the bulwark Vinson Dynamics' mercenaries had erected in order to defend the facility.

Wraith laughed as the Militia soldiers attempted to find cover as they suddenly came under fire from the Monarch. He watched as the rebels we're reduced to a bloody mulch as the XOBTR-16's 20mm rounds made short work of the Militia rebels. He received several nods of thanks as he stomped through the scene of carnage, crushing anybody who had survived the initial onslaught. Wraith then played a deadly game of three way cat and mouse. Wraith chased down any Militia foot soldiers in the area, showering them with relentless hails of armor piercing bullets while he evaded the three Titans trying to reduce him to a mangled heap of scrap metal.

Eventually, after a couple of minutes of pushing back the Militia infantry he had given the mercenaries some breathing room. They were no longer being besieged but still had to be wary of the occasional hail of fire from one of the Legions as well as the Militia who were now using the buildings and cargo containers as cover.

"Lance 3-4, I need you to draw the fire of the Titans, try to take potshots…" Wraith grunted as his Monarch was blindsided by a Legion, stumbling to a knee before catching itself. "And whittle down their defenses." He finished, dashing away from the lumbering threat as he released his maelstrom electric smoke canisters. The Legion didn't follow, but a stream of tracers did. Wraith fired back as he fell back behind a corner of a nearby building.

"We'll try." Came the crackled response over Wraith's helmet.

Wraith grunted in approval over the radio, sucking in a breath through gritted teeth as his earlier headache redoubled itself. He took a moment to pause, trying to repress the full body stiffness and tingling he was experiencing as his brain felt like it was aflame. He had been so preoccupied that he hadn't even noticed that Vi had taken over control of the Titan until he was jostled roughly in his seat.

"Wraith?! Wraith? Can you hear me?" Vi asked as she caught an incoming fist from one of the Legions, stopping the appendage before twisting the offending arm down and away. Vi twisted her own fist on its axis, blowing out the Legions torque limiters before she yanked the arm away with a heavy kick and a shrieking protest of metal.

"...Y...y-yeah… I'm fine… I'm okay. I can hear you." He muttered, feeling twin trickles of blood begin to run from his nostrils.

"You are _not_ okay!" She almost wailed, her newly acquired emotional software libraries working at full capacity. Even as she said this she fired off her XO-16 chaingun at point blank. Tearing through the up-armored Ogre-Class Titan. "You need _immediate_ medical attention." She said firmly.

"Vi, we have a job to do." Wraith protested.

"No. I am getting you out of here." Vi countered.

"We run and they'll shoot us in the back." He huffed, stifling a sigh and managing to drown out his lingering pain through stims and willpower. "Vi, relinquish controls."

Vi was silent for a moment, simply making efforts to avoid the remaining, and now very aggressive, Legion.

Wraith let out a sigh. "Vi. Relinquish controls." He ordered, adding, "Override: Kilo Delta 7-6 Sierra." The Monarch lurched to a stop as Vi was kicked from the control systems.

In response Vi said lowly, "Promise me you will get medical attention as soon as possible. I do not wish to lose another Pilot because of you."

"I promise." He said glumly.

Wraith then checked his minimap finding the two remaining Titans. The Northstar was closer than before, also maneuvering through the various containers and buildings, most likely laying tether traps. He made a note to be wary of his surroundings, careful not to fall prey to the troublesome traps.

Thankfully, he didn't have to chase down the second Legion. The hulking machine painted a fierce yellow with olive accenture. The over-aggressive behavior, had pointed to the probability that the Pilot inside was desperate to avenge his fallen ally. The Militia pilot may have had firepower and durability on its side, but that didn't matter in the face of technological superiority. Whereas the Legion tried to make up for its shortcomings with brute strength, the Monarch had already proven that the few flaws it did have were well covered with an effectively planned and well tuned suite of supportive systems and armaments. Wraith would hammer this point home as he engaged the Militia machine.

The freelance pilot opened with a series of short bursts from his XO-16 chaingun. Strafing sideways as he fired, Wraith charged another shot of his energy cannon, waiting for the moment the Legion would throw up its gun shield. Wraith's planning paid off as the Legion attempted to protect itself with its hexagonal energy shield. The blue energy shield neutralized a handful of 20mm bullets before being struck by a burst of energy. Vibrant cascades of blue-white energy danced along the chassis of the Legion, jumping between various points along the metal surfaces of the Titan and its weapon. The Legion shuddered for a moment from the electric shock before the torrent of energy arced back into the Monarch's energy cannon, supercharging the shielding systems.

This also had the effect of dropping the energy shield the Legion was projecting from its Predator Cannon. As soon as the particle shield winked out of existence, Wraith opened up with a firestorm of munitions. Two rocket salvos roared the short distance between the two war machines, ripping into the armor plating of the Legion as if the material was paper. Even as the armor literally peeled away from the Militia Titan, Wraith continued to lay down fire from his XO-16. Each cough and belch of fire from the weapon's muzzle was accompanied by a shower of sparks from the Legion and a metallic click as belt couplings and bullet casings plinked into the sea of munitions casings that were strewn about the ground.

The Legion, despite the damage it was taking managed to fight back. Firing off a long stream of bullets into the Monarch, chewing through Wraith's shields and peppering the armor underneath. Despite this, the Legion pilot was forced to eject for face a fiery death. The Legion's Auto-Titan was soon overwhelmed as it tried to fight back in a system severely disadvantaged by the extensive amount of damage it had received.

With the second Legion out of commission, Wraith turned his attention to the sky. Scanning the sky he found his target, the Legion's ejected pilot. He brought up his shoulder cannon, the on screen reticle changing for a split second to an open circle. The Mercenary Pilot lined up his descending prey before firing a stream of electricity. The energy beam traveled the relatively short distance instantaneously, bathing the Militia pilot in a cascade of electricity. Wraith watched the limp form of the pilot fall to the ground before focusing his attention to the remaining Northstar.

"Lance 3-4, do you have any Anti-Titan weapons?" Wraith asked over the radio as he reloaded his XO-16 chaingun.

There was a loud crackle of radio static that caused Wraith to wince from the effect that it had on his splitting head pain. "Yeah… you need em?" Came the quick reply.

"I'll need you to help me take out that Northstar. The rest of you need to take out the remaining infantry." Wraith instructed.

"Alright. We'll work on it." The voice replied as the transmission cut off relayed orders in the background.

Wraith let out a pain tinged sigh, the day was almost over, soon he would be taking a _much_ needed rest. Wraith did his best in his pain beleaguered mind to escort his detail of mercs, all of them armed with an assortment of Anti-Titan weaponry. The only indication that they were getting closer to the Northstar were the narrow misses from the Militia Titan.

"Vi."

Silence.

"Vi." He tried again.

"Yes, pilot?" His Titan's AI replied, an edge to her synthetic voice.

"I need you to relay positional data of the Northstar to the mercenaries." When Vi didn't respond to his commands, he growled with impatience. "Forget it. I'll do it myself."

Slowing his pace to pull up a larger map, he located the Militia Northstar, represented by an orange blip and check it's position relative to his own. "Lance 3-4, the Militia Northstar is three hundred meters to our three o'clock. Get yourselves in position, I'll draw it's attention." He spoke, trying to mitigate some of the anger Vi had invoked in him.

"Gotcha. We'll let you know when we're in position." Came back the gruff voice.

Wraith hissed out a breath, closing his eyes for a moment to try and suppress the flaring, constant pain in his head. Thankfully the path before his Titan, so he was able to take this small reprieve without having to worry about colliding with anything.

"Pilot, we're in position. We'll pitch in when the fighting starts."

"Alright." He replied. Thankful for the help. To be honest he was running low on ammunition and would have trouble fighting a nimble Titan like a Northstar. He hoped that the Anti-Titan weapons would be able to supplement his own nearly expended armaments.

This was a hope that would have to suffer a trial by fire as he stepped into the open, drawing the attention of the Northstar.

With surprisingly lightning fast reflexes given his pained state, Wraith managed to narrowly avoid a plasma slug that struck a building behind him, creating a molten slag infused crater on one of the reinforced outer walls. Wraith replied in kind, firing his XO-16 at the Northstar. Unfortunately for Wraith, the Northstar had no issue spinning and dashing out of the way of the telegraphed tracers. Wraith frowned muttering a curse as the Northstar displayed a flamboyant degree of maneuverability.

Fortunately for Wraith, the mercenaries had fired a veritable wall of explosive ordnance. He had to dash back as a storm of rockets and missiles screamed past him to make contact with the Northstar.

Some of the rockets unfortunately missed their intended target, sailing past the Northstar to disappear in the distant landscape. However, the munitions that did hit did considerable damage to the Northstar's chassis. Wraith grinned as entire sections of armor sheared away from the skeletal Stryder frame the Northstar was built upon.

The Militia pilot, now faced with two threats had a considerable drop in it's ability to evade damage from both sources. It would occasionally take focused fire from Wraith—dealing precise, deadly damage to key systems—whenever it would focus on the group of mercenaries. And when it would focus on dispatching Wraith it would take blanket, brute force damage from the small detachment of mercs.

Eventually, the Northstar, aflame and only having dealt modest damage to the defending parties, decided to cut its losses and flee, dispensing a wall of electric smoke before dashing off. Wraith decided not to give chase. He would take this victory, and from the sounds of jubilation over the radio, the mercs thought the same.

"Good work." Wraith congratulated.

"Thanks for the assist, pilot." The voice was happy, but he could the bittersweetness in his voice. The Northstar had managed to kill a few of them, he must have been good friends with the now deceased.

Before Wraith could reply, there was a transmission from the Vinson Dynamics representative. "Pilot, there is a situation that you need to attend to." She said firmly. "The Militia, being the bellicose savages that they are, have amassed a sizeable assault force. It seems as if they are trying to overwhelm our defenses with sheer force. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, however, they've managed to disable or destroy the majority of our automated systems. This is where you, and your contractual obligations come in." She explained.

"Got it. On my way." Wraith replied, before returning his attention to the mercenaries who were beginning to head back to their previous positions.

"You guys going to be okay?" Wraith asked.

"Yeah, we can handle the stragglers." One of the mercs replied.

"Good luck." Wraith said as he stomped off to the location the representative had given him.

It was only a few minutes before Wraith came upon the battlefield. Several olive and orange Vanguard Titans were engaging the amassed collective of Vinson Dynamics' own Titans. The Monarchs, despite being fresh off the line and without pilots were a scary sight. Wraith watched as one Monarch dashed into a Ronin, shoulder-checking the smaller Titan before punching its fist through the Ronin's cockpit and withdrawing a struggling Militia pilot. The Monarch crushed the fleshy being before kicking the staggering Ronin to the ground. As this concluded the Monarch ducked under a wide swing of a Militia Scorch, dashing away as it dumped several rocket pods into the Militia Titan.

Despite this, the sheer number of Militia Titans worked to their advantage. This was seen when a Militia Atlas-Class Ion dispatched a Northstar who was busy defending itself from a Tone. Wraith chose that as his first target, striking the triumphant Titan with a bolt from his shoulder cannon and firing an entire drum of ammunition at the stunned machine. By the time the Ion's electrical systems recovered it was greeted by a salvo of rockets.

The Ion struggled to a knee as Wraith moved in for the kill. Before the Ion could rise Wraith had kicked the Ion to it's back. The Militia Titan sprawled back, and as it rose was met with the foot of Wraith's Monarch stomping through the Ion's cockpit. There was a screech of failing metal with a wet undertone of crushed flesh as the foot plunged into the Militia Titan before Wraith withdrew his foot, moving to other targets.

Unfortunately, Wraith wouldn't get the opportunity to pick his next battle. A Militia Vanguard, battle-worn and covered in a litany of tally marks and intimidating decals began to engage Wraith's bare white Monarch. "Don't know where you got that Vanguard, but let's see who is the better pilot." Came the Militia pilot's voice over their external speakers.

Wraith let out a pained but exasperated sigh at his adversary's posturing. Wraith opened with the full brunt of his XO-16 as he dashed sideways, narrowly avoiding a quartet of rockets that spiraled past him with a howl of rocket thrusters. Unfortunately, Wraith was unable to dodge the subsequent three rocket clusters, taking significant damage to his chassis. With a distasteful scowl, Wraith snapped off a quick shot of his shoulder cannon, instantly recharging a portion of his shields.

As the Vanguard began to reload its exhausted rocket rack Wraith fired his third ammunition drum at the Militia pilot, dashing in closer to ensure that there was less space between him and his target and a smaller window for his shots to miss.

Hopefully Wraith's gamble would pay off, as he was dangerously low on ammunition to continue this fight. With that concern in mind Wraith waited for the momentum of his dash to drag him closer before he gambled with firing off the remaining maelstrom smoke canisters he had towards the Vanguard. He watched the Militia Vanguard get consumed in a roiling storm of thunder and smoke. Wraith followed up with a left hook, thrusting his fist blindly into the cloud of death and finding purchase on damaged, dented armor.

The Vanguard dashed away from the sudden influx of damage. "I can't lie. You're good. Creative." The Militia pilot admittedly praised. "Too bad we're going to have to cut this short. I'll get you next time, 'lancer." The Vanguard taunted, as it dispersed it's own cloud of electric smoke, providing cover for himself and a sizeable group of retreating Militia.

Wraith sat confused as to why the Militia we're letting up. Given they had the advantage of outnumbering the ragtag amalgamation of forces that were defending Sierra White. That was until he looked back to see scattered field of corpses, destruction and mountainous heaps of metal that were once Titans. A fair portion of these corpses—both Titan and human—were either mercenaries or Vinson Dynamics personnel. Despite this, an even larger portion of the dead and dying belonged to the Militia. Whatever the Militia had hoped to achieve here, they didn't mean to get it through a pyrrhic victory. Despite this they had already lost a lot of resources, Titans, pilots and grunts. It would be hard for them to come back from this, but then again, the Militia always found a way.

There were still stragglers, those that were separated, or too wounded to keep up, many of these soldiers who either put up valiant, yet futile fights or we're captured or executed. Wraith took his own pot shots at the fleeing Militia, nailing a few of the grunts who sprinted from cover to cover. He sighed heavily, taking a moment to rest his head and mind.

His reprieve was cut short from a private transmission from the Vinson Dynamics representative. "Good work out there. I am glad you were competent at fulfilling your contract. Not to mention skilled, you've managed to rack up quite the kill count." She missed. "Nevertheless I have one more request of you. Report back to the maintenance elevator. I have some scans to perform as well as a few repairs and a repaint. On the house." She offered.

Despite the urge and the need to seek medical attention, Wraith agreed. Hopefully they could treat him whilst he was waiting for repairs to complete. They had ran him ragged, but he had done a good job, he was tired but proud of his handiwork. Besides, it wasn't everyday that you got to take a prototype Titan home.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Sorry about the slow updates, college has been really busy this semester (I'm taking 18 units so I can apply for transfer) and with a busy work schedule as well, it hasn't really given me much free time. Hopefully this is up to snuff, it was written over the course of almost two months whenever I get free time, so it may not be my best work. Still, hope you guys and girls enjoy. Let me know what you think!**

It had been more than two days since she had last seen her pilot. The two had a bit of a quarrel and she had chosen to stop interacting with him for the time being. Now his neural-link was offline and she was sitting in a half-assembled state. She was uncomfortable to say the least.

She sat in an almost inactive state, running at the lowest priority of idleness, lest she be caught by surprise. However it wasn't like she would be able to do much, given that the majority of her systems were disconnected or disabled. Giving an inward sigh of resignation, she noticed one of Vinson's engineers take notice of her central glowing-white optic flare up in activity before dimming again. When the green and dark grey jumpsuit clad man came over she sighed again.

"Interesting…" She heard the man mutter, peering into her optics. "Alison, come here. I think there's some activity going on. I think the AI is still active."

"It shouldn't be. We ran the shutdown codes." She peered into the optics, taking note of the dim glow of the systems within. Everything seemed normal, despite this model currently lacking an AI core. "All of the wireless connections should have been terminated." She mused, "Perhaps we erred in our application?"

Vi grumbled internally. She was being fussed over while a group of people tore her apart and tinkered with her internal mechanical systems.

"Should we rerun the protocols?" The man asked, Vi's audio receptors amplifying and identifying his voice despite the din of the workshop.

"I guess, just to be sure." Alison had replied, beginning to move away when she spotted increase in intensity of the glow followed by a subtle twitch of the Monarch's optics. With an animated gasp Alison exclaimed, "It moved! The Monarch moved!"

"See! I knew it was still active." The man smiled at his correct presumption. He quickly tempered his demeanor, adding, "Let's review those protocols and reapply them."

The Monarch's armored optics covers narrowed as Vi approximated a glare as best she could with her Titan body. "You will do no such thing." Came her voice over her—surprisingly—still functional external speakers.

As the room quieted to near dead silence both of the engineers stood flabbergasted. "I—wha—it can talk!" One of them blubbered.

"I know, I'm surprised you lower life forms can speak as well." Vi joked, earning a few chuckles from the various mechanics within the workshop.

At this the woman—Alison—shot back. "Hey now! No need to be rude!"

"And how would you feel if I pulled your arms and legs off then tried to lobotomize you?" Vi sassed.

"Quite the… personality on this one." The male engineer noted.

Vi audibly sighed. "Where is my pilot?"

"Your pilot? The mercenary?" The man asked.

"Yes, him." The Titan responded with a tone of irritation.

"We wouldn't know. Our department doesn't deal with that kind of stuff." Alison replied, still bewildered by the personality that the Monarch possessed. "We were just told to give you a diagnostic and a full refitting."

"He's probably fine." The man reassured her. "I mean that guy was a veritable treasure trove of data, he's given us so much to work with. He's been a valuable asset." The man finished, curbing his building excitement.

"Great." Vi simulated sarcasm before going on to say, "How long will this take, exactly?"

"A couple more hours." One of the mechanics answered. "We just need to reattach your new limbs and then your electronics need to be recalibrated. We also need to address the severe energy drifting in your power core." He listed as he looked over a diagnostics checklist. "Should take us between two to three hours."

Vi was silent for some time before she replied with a curt, "Very well." as she set herself into standby mode.

* * *

Wraith groaned as he woke up from his chemically induced sleep. It was the fourth in two days. Vinson Dynamics' medical staff had kept the man on heavy sedatives and a cocktail of powerful drugs to keep his neural activity to a minimum. The sparse lapses of time where he was conscious and cognizant had informed him that he was on the road to recovery. However, despite the long stretches of sleep, he felt drained and fatigued.

Given what he was experiencing, he was glad that Vinson Dynamics was giving him medical attention. He had also heard that his Titan was getting maintained by their engineers. Apparently that representative had pulled a few more strings. Wraith grumbled, this probably meant he was in debt to Vinson Dynamics. He failed to see how he could receive all of these things as compensation for foregoing monetary payment for his contract.

His suspicions seemed to be confirmed when said representative had entered his small room, glancing about the room before settling on the man. "'Wraith', is it?" She asked with a surprisingly pretty smile that contrasted her formal appearance.

"Take it this is your doing?" He asked as neutrally as he could, given what the drug induced fatigue was doing to his body and subsequently, his speech.

"Think of it as thanks." She smiled as she walked over to his bedside. "The information you gave us was quite valuable. Saved us Millions in credits towards research and a few years of time." She explained. "The cost for professional medical care and engineering services is justifiable given your value to us." She finished coolly.

Wraith shrugged. He could accept free services. "Thanks."

Then the woman took on a different cast. "Business aside. I wanted to say… thank you…" She said awkwardly, perhaps not used to speaking for herself. "W-we… We have a few hours until your Titan is ready and I'd like to get to know you better in the meantime." She said with building confidence as she worked herself up into a steady pace. That all came tumbling apart however as she nervously asked, "I-If… that's okay with you."

"Uh… sure." Wraith nodded. A little confused by her stark differences in her personality.

She gave a relieved smile, "Thank you." She smiled again, eeking out an infectious smile from Wraith. "I don't get much practice or time to be myself." She admitted tiredly. "I'm always supposed to be a face of Vinson Dynamics. I'm not even that important, I'm just a facility manager…" She lamented. "It's funny I've represented a company more than I've represented myself." She said as her melancholic tone left her with a wistful sigh.

Unsure of where to take the conversation from here, Wraith replied with a cautious, "Was it worth it?"

"If you're asking me if I have any regrets, I… guess I do." She sighed. "I've been working for this company since I've been a teenager. Seven years spent dedicated to my job instead of my own life. My social life is basically non-existent. I've never really been able to pursue anything that makes me happy." She said as she looked out of the window of Wraith's medical suite, twenty stories above the ground. As she gazed upon an azure ocean and black-sanded beachs she glanced at the mercenary's reflection. "I envy you... Able to chase what your heart desires… I have to say. I'm quite jealous indeed…" She said in a predatory tone.

"I still have to make ends meet." He answered.

"True… but you could always take what you want." She responded, kneeling down until her head was next to his. "Just like how I could take what I want right now…" She whispered into his ear, even as her hand started its slow journey down his body.

"Who said it would be that easy?" Wraith smirked playfully, sitting up on his elbows.

"Oh I can be quite… resourceful." She purred with a hint of laughter.

An amorous hour later and the two had sorted out their jumbled mess of clothes to appear mostly presentable. The woman—Veronica, he had found out—was currently refastening her bra with her back to the freelancer.

"Th-thank you for... that." She stammered, flustered, yet slowly returning to her formal self.

"It was a pleasure." Wraith joked, earning an amused look from over Veronica's shoulder.

"That it was." She smiled. "I don't get to enjoy myself often…" She huffed.

"Well if you ever need an out from this, you know where to contact me. I could always use another talented crew member." Wraith offered, as he finished donning his own shirt, just as Veronica buttoned hers.

"Ambitious I see…" She chuckled. "Trying to start your own mercenary company?"

"The thought had crossed my mind…"

"As much as I appreciate the offer. I really do. I don't think your… wife… would apprecia—"

"We aren't tog—it's complicated." Wraith muttered, mood turning dour. With a sigh, he dismissed that train of thought and looked at Veronica, back to her prim and proper appearance as a representative of Vinson Dynamics. "Anyways… My offer still stands. I'm serious about that. I'll even arrange for a pick up."

"I… Thank you." She smiled, a look of genuine happiness fleeting across her demure features. "From your… wonderful... performance, I'd say you're well enough to move about. We still have an hour to spend, perhaps you are hungry?" She asked.

"I could go for some food." Wraith answered shortly. "I need my gear first."

"Ah, yes. Your equipment." She agreed. "Right this way." She instructed, leaving the room with Wraith following shortly behind her. As they traveled down the almost sterile looking hallway, she commented. "Please refrain from looking at my butt, sir." That led to a stammered, muted apology and a slight tug of bemusement at her lips.

Despite the silent walk to wherever Veronica was taking him, he didn't mind the quiet. It helped ease his mild headache and allowed him to take in the companionable silence. Wraith was never much for talking, and from his interactions with Veronica, he had taken that she wasn't either. Whether that was from her choice to be professionally detached or her actual personality was yet to be seen. However, he appreciated that a conversation wasn't initiated just to fill the silent void.

Eventually, after minutes of walking down grey plated hallways, the odd patch of greenery and several dozen windows, they had arrived at a locker room. Inside were several Vinson Dynamics employees, in various states of undress or lounging about, taking a rest. Seeing these employees, Veronica spoke harshly. "I hope you aren't taking a break on company time."

"O-of course not… ma'am." Came back the startled and hurried replies as those lounging about jumped up and rushed off to where they were supposed to be.

"Your gear should be in section two, Mercenary. I think you should be able to find what belongs to you." She said coldly, detached and professional.

Wraith simply nodded, taking a look at the markings on the walls before following the signage to his right. Sure enough, he had found his equipment, all locked behind a mesh caged locker. As he approached the locks blinked green as a metallic click echoed across the concrete space. He noticed the blinking red light of a security camera tracking his movements from the corner of the ceiling.

Wraith nodded in wordless thanks, before he retrieved his gear, weapons and all. His flight suit and kevlar and carbon nano-weave vest was the first thing to come on. Shortly followed by his knee pads and shin armor before he moved to his arms then his helmet. He kept his weapons loaded, but the magazines unchambered. A show of faith and goodwill, but the veteran pilot wasn't stupid. He wouldn't be unarmed in he had a say in the matter.

Regardless, it was a massive show of faith from the company to allow an armed, currently unaffiliated contractor of his caliber to roam without a security detail escorting him.

"I trust that everything is in order?" She asked.

"No complaints." Wraith confirmed.

"I hope you don't make me regret allowing you to be armed."

"I'll behave."

Veronica simply smiled at the freelancer's sense of obedience. "I am going to hold you to that." She quipped. When he gave no reaction or complaint she gave a soft sigh and began to escort the man to the on-site cafeteria.

Another trip down several nondescript corridors and through two security checkpoints ended with another elevator ride. During the silent ride Veronica spoke up. "Not much for words are you?" She asked.

Wraith turned to look at her, silently staring.

"You're a different person with that uniform on." She smiled ruefully. "I guess we're similar in those respects…" She finished, looking ahead to the elevator door momentarily. Shortly afterwards, the elevator slowed to a stop, the doors parting with a soft clunk of metal.

The elevator let out into a t-shaped hallway, the far end made of a glass wall that led to a modestly sized cafeteria. It was a little on the small side but still had ample room for a group of people. As they entered the cafeteria Wraith took note of the design of the benches. They were made out of a single piece of stainless steel, bent and tooled to form both the benches and the eating surfaces. There were several rows of these surfaces each with subtle scratches or scuffs, but each immaculately clean. They ignored these larger tables as they walked around the L-shaped counter to a space in the back where several smaller, more intimate tables were held.

As Veronica found them a place to sit she waved to one of the staff working behind the counter. The person in question nodded and began to make their way over to where the two were seated.

"Hello ma'am. What can I get you today?" The middle aged man asked politely. "The usual?"

"Yes, Hudson. Thank you." She smiled.

"Great. And for your…" The man, Hudson' trailed off, taking in the full combat gear Wraith wore with palpable nervousness. Clearing his throat he continued. "Mercenary friend?"

"I'll have a sandwich." Wraith replied, staring at the portly man.

"Yes… sir." He gulped. "A-any preference sir?"

"Meat." Wraith answered, still staring at Hudson.

"Okay." He replied, turning to the Vinson Dynamics representative. "If you'll excuse me." He bowed slightly before scurrying off to the kitchen.

"That was… humorous." The woman said with a tint of laughter to her voice. "Intimidation comes to you naturally I see."

Wraith shrugged indifferently.

"You're quite the serious personality. No nonsense. I like that. It's a good work ethic." She mused.

Wraith looked at her as she spoke, giving a curt nod of his head, signifying his agreeance. "In my line of work, if you aren't serious you're dead."

She nodded her head, making a sound of agreement. Before she could verbally respond however, she was interrupted by the arrival of their food.

Hudson returned, depositing their food with a pointed attempt at ignoring the intimidating pilot.

"Thanks you, Hudson."

"Y-you're welcome, ma'am."

Wraith looked at his own food—a sandwich—and found it visually appealing enough as he started to remove his helmet, even as Hudson made a hasty retreat behind the counter.

As he placed his helmet on the bench next to him he removed his gloves and looked at the sandwich before him. The freelancer took a moment to glance up at the woman before him before he shrugged his shoulders and began to eat.

* * *

Vi ran yet another systems check as the Vinson Dynamics engineers and mechanics reattached various limbs and weapons systems. While she was sure these people had… qualifications… she still took comfort in checking her own systems personally. She had already caught a small handful of mistakes or oversights not caught by the Vinson employees.

Unfortunately, working on a relatively new Titan system and configuration left the humans prone to mistakes. "Hardpoint 3-7A is misaligned." She informed the mechanics crew, who slowed their pace slightly before adjusting the aforementioned error.

"Attention: Automatic recalibration of motor systems has failed. A manual recalibration is required." She spoke mechanically, her tone flat.

She waited for the crew to finish their job, idling until the tinkering had stopped. Pulling herself from her "unconscious" state her optics twitched before settling over the group of humans. Noticing that they now had her attention, Alison addressed the Monarch Titan. "Is there anything that needs adjustment?" She asked in a professional albeit slightly frightened state.

"Standby." Vi replied, initiating a full scan. She was silent for several moments before she replied with a succinct, "All systems operable."

"That's what I like to hear." Came a deeper voice, one she had recognized.

"Wraith!" Vi exclaimed, turning to see her pilot walk in with another woman. "I am glad you are okay." She "breathed" with relief.

"I'll be calling my Goblin to pick me up." Wraith told the representative as he began to walk towards his Titan.

"I'll arrange a landing zone for you." She nodded before walking off.

Wraith walked past the throng of people who were standing about, interested in the exchange currently happening. As he began to climb into the Monarch's open hatch he turned to the assembled mechanics and engineers. "Is everything ready?" He asked, his low, slightly digital, raspy voice echoing slightly in the relatively quiet room.

"Yeah. Everything should be fine. You're all set to go." One of the mechanics grunted gruffly.

Wraith nodded as he seated himself, displaying his thanks as he keyed the hatch to close. And as he made himself comfortable, Vi spoke up again. "Pilot… I wanted to apologize for my behavior. I am sorry for my childish behavior."

"You should know better than to ignore commands during combat." Wraith replied with a slightly dismissive tone. "I'll have to make changes to your AI." He commented as he began to pilot his Titan out of the facility.

"No!" Vi exclaimed catching Wraith and herself by surprise. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again, I promise! Just please don't change me!" She pleaded.

Wraith was silent for some time—mostly because he found her behavior strange—before he responded. "I'll think on it." He muttered as he led the giant machine through the building and towards the exit.

The trip was silent until he had reached the shipyards of the facility. "Mercenary, your ship is cleared for landing zone three." The representative informed him.

"Thanks. Forwarding the information now." He grunted, as he opened a direct channel to his ship. As he relayed the pertinent information he was greeted by his mechanic, Natalie.

"Boss? That you?" She asked rhetorically. "I thought you had died on us." She continued.

"Afraid not."

"Ah, I can dream can't I?" She replied with a muted giggle. "Ship's on its way." She said shortly.

"Appreciate it." Wraith grunted.

Soon enough, and Wraith had heard the whining moan of the Goblin dropship's engines as it flew down from it's place among the clouds. He angled the Monarch's optics up to watch the angled ship roar to a stop, a few feet above the ground. As a maelstrom of dust kicked up from the engine's jet wash the rear door lowered with a mechanical whine of heavy motors. Wraith waited for the dust to settle as the ship slowed to a soft landing upon the jet-wash charred tarmac before he stepped forward. The door had barely clunked down onto the ground when Wraith had stomped his way onto his ship. "Vi. Terminate remote connection." He ordered as he exited his Titan, the front hatch stopping just shy of the interior roof of the ship. He turned to see the hatch fold close and the AI core dim before darkening completely.

Making his way into the cockpit, he moved to sit in the pilot's seat when he found his reclusive pilot, Zero sitting there, wearing a flight harness over her orange jumpsuit. "H-hey." She laughed weakly, scratching the lower shaved portion of her hair.

Wraith blinked in surprise, finding it strange that she would be here in person. "It's a surprise seeing you here." He commented with a strange smile to his voice.

"I… I got worried. We didn't hear back from you." She spoke softly, as she spooled the ship's engines back up to full power, watching several monitors and gauges as the ship ascended.

"...Sorry." He offered as he took his helmet off to give her an apologetic smile.

She looked at him, surprised and curious before offering her own smile. "I'm just glad to have you back."

"Glad to be back." He replied as he massaged his temples, which still had a dull pain of a residual headache.

Noticing this, Zero spoke up. "You okay?" She asked concerned.

"Maybe. I don't know." He sighed, unhappy that the pain was returning.

"Get some rest when we get back." She suggested as the ship began to pick up speed and shake slightly as they broke away from the upper reaches of the stratosphere.

Wraith grunted in agreement, looking to her concerned face before attempting to give her a reassuring smile.

As his ship became visible, he turned to Zero to tell her to dock with the outer airlock of Cargo Bay Two so he could offload the Titan. His pilot nodded her head as she swung the modified Goblin under the much larger, heavily armed cargo freighter. The docking process with the airlocks with Cargo Bay Two were fairly trivial and successful.

Despite this however, Zero still secured an EVA helmet over her head, double checking the seal before she looked over to Wraith who also had secured his own helmet. While the pilot's flight suit and combat rig were not real EVA suits they were pressure sealed and allowed for short spacewalks of 45 minutes. Wraith resecured his helmet and moved to the Goblin's cargo hold. He found a small side door attached to the ship through a mechanical umbilical, and moved through to the outer airlock of his ship. A short moment was spent inputting the code of his outer airlock before he cycled through into his ship.

He then took a moment to seal off Cargo Bay Two, preventing any of the airlocks leading from or to the hold to open. Wraith double checked that the airlocks were in fact locked down before he moved to detach the umbilical from the Goblin.

"Zero, you're detached, move back to I can lower the platform." He spoke over the radio, watching out one of the portholes as she maneuvered back from the ship. He then initiated the energy field over the giant side panel that would soon part from the ship. This allowed for the atmosphere to remain inside the ship and allow for easy access of large items into the Cargo Hold.

When the field stabilized and reported back at one hundred percent integrity he keyed for the door panel to drop down. Soon it jutted out at a 90 degree angle, not unlike a landing pad for the Goblin.

Zero being the young talented pilot that she was, was able to land the Goblin no problem on top of the makeshift platform. Wraith spent but a moment double checking the magnetic locks on his boots before he walked out of the ship, through the forcefield and towards the lowering back door of his Goblin.

As he walked up the ramp, he saw Zero poke her head around her seat, to peer through the cockpit door and into the cargo hold. She and Wraith exchanged a quick wave before he climbed into his waiting Monarch.

Operating on manual true control was a bit harder than with the assistance an AI subtly correcting and making changes to facilitate movement, but Wraith managed. He had back peddled the Titan out of the back of the ship without incident and was soon standing on the outer platform of his ship. With the magnetic locks still holding the Titan to the hull he cleared enough space from his Goblin before he radioed Zero. "Hey, I'm clear, go and park the Goblin." He cleared her.

"Will do. See you in a bit." She replied shortly.

Wraith grunted a reply as he stomped his way across the platform into his ship, the trip taking longer than usual as he made sure that he was secure before taking another step. The last thing he wanted to happen was for the Titan's magnets to fail and he go tumbling into space. Eventually after a few minutes of careful, methodical walking he had gotten his towering war machine into his ship proper.

Now came the task of transporting the Monarch Titan to Cargo Bay One, where his machine shop was. Unfortunately, the structure of his ship meant that large objects, such as Titans, could not traverse from side to side. Instead he had to travel along a U-shaped path that allowed the largest of his equipment through the ship. He would have to walk through Cargo Bay Three which would prove an easy task once the tables were moved out of the way. He contacted his AI for this task. "Vi, I need you to control the Spectres and move the tables in Cargo Bay Three out of the way."

There was a pause followed by a curt "Yes sir.". She left her pilot waiting for a few short moments before he saw several Spectres cycle through the smaller bulkhead airlock. He only had to wait a minute or two before the AI reported back as successful.

At her signaling, Wraith contacted his pilot, Zero. "You back at the helm?"

"Yeeeap." Came her reply as the sound of video games could be heard in the background.

"Open Bulkhead C-2-3." Wraith ordered.

"Uh huh." She muttered distractedly. Despite her preoccupation the giant bulkhead did begin to slide apart.

He watched as several lights strobed along the floor and ceiling as the door parted with a loud mechanical drone. Due to the spectacle, several groups of his "passengers" watched on in curiosity.

Once the doors had parted enough to allow the Titan through he stepped into Cargo Bay Three.

"Zero, seal 2-3. Open Transfer C-3-4." Wraith once again instructed.

There was no verbal response but he did hear the bulkhead behind him closing as he saw the one at the end of Cargo Bay Three. He began to stride forward past confused Militiamen who began to whisper and mutter amongst themselves. Wraith cared not, he just wanted to get this to Morgan, get any tweaks or improvements she could think of then go to sleep. It was a simple request, and despite the simplicity things seemed determined to not go his way. Two people stepped in front of him and stared down the reverse-engineered Titan as it made its way across the cavernous space. And when the two refused to budge as the Titan closed the distance between them he sighed explosively. "Why does everything have to be difficult…" He muttered to himself as he came to a reluctant halt. "Move." He grunted.

"Where the hell did you get that?!" Gates yelled in an accusatory voice.

"Move." He said again patience wearing thin.

"I'm with Gates on this one. You mind explaining where you got a hold of one of our Vanguards?" Briggs asked.

"I don't have time for this…" He muttered to himself in frustration. He then took a careful step over the two Militia commanders, proceeding onwards to his destination at the end of the Cargo Bay. Fortunately, the Militia didn't try to follow him down the cavernous hold. He soon made it into the transfer bay towards the rear of his ship. Making a hard left he proceeded about one hundred feet down the wide corridor before he reached the next bulkhead.

He began to radio Zero when she beat him to it. "Already on it." She mumbled. And true to her words he watched as the previous transfer door close with an accompanied lights and alarms as the door before him opened.

"Doors sealed, all Militia accounted for." Vi reported back to him.

Wraith sighed. Tired but glad that the day was almost done.

* * *

Shortly after he had walked his Monarch through the Cargo Bay, there was a flurry of conversation. Some of it was confused, some of it was scared and some of it was heated. Such was the case with the three marooned Militia leaders and their remaining Pilots.

"So, we're in some serious shit now right?" Barker laughed dryly. "I mean they reverse engineered the only advantage we had."

"I say we capture our "Captain" and get the information from him. He's got to know something. Or we can steal the Titan back and take it apart." Gates suggested.

"That's probably not going to go well." Briggs replied, punctuated by Wraith speaking over the intercom.

"If you want to test your plans Gates, I'll leave the airlock open for you. I'll have some body bags ready for you too."

"My point exactly." Sarah Briggs concurred. "We should be focusing on establishing a new advantage as well as devising up a way to combat our own Titans."

"So we basically are going to be fighting ourselves?" Asked one Pilot, confused.

"No, but until we learn the capabilities of that Titan, our Vanguards are the closest bet." Commander Briggs explained.

In an uncommon spark of insight, Barker turned to their scared lieutenant. "Any chance you could get him to let you look over that Titan?"

The woman in question blanched. "No."

"Come on, you know the guy. Had history with him. That's gotta count for something!" He complained, now the gathered individuals were all looking at her.

"My point exactly." She stood her ground. "I never wanted any of this to happen. If I knew re-joining the Militia would have turned him into… this, I wouldn't have signed back up." She took a breath before she continued, "I don't want to ruin what little I have left of my relationship, for the Militia." Lieutenant Saei stood her ground.

"You're risking the fate of the Frontier in an attempt to salvage a relationship you might not even have?" Briggs asked confused and upset.

"Well if I look at it your way, your plan is doomed to fail, seeing as how it's a relationship I 'might not even have'. I've said my position, that's final."

Briggs sighed in frustration, but relented. Gates shook her head in disappointment whilst Barker shrugged who then took control of the situation, starting off by asking, "So, what are the biggest problems with the Vanguard?" With his question he seemed to break up some of the tension within the group, slowly getting everyone back on track.

* * *

It had been a long three weeks, but Wraith had finished his job of Ferrying the Militia back into their own territory. It was some backwater, but regardless of that he was still met with a small group of Militia soldiers when he docked at their port.

"Quitethe warm welcome." He chuckled lowly as he stomped his Monarch down the massive side panel he was using as a makeshift gangplank.

"State your business." One of the armed Militia yelled at the white Monarch.

"Just finishing up my last job." Wraith replied as cordially as he could manage.

"We've got to check some things out. Stay where you are or we will shoot." The Militia man warned.

Wraith burst into heart laughter, his voice modulator giving him an unnatural cast to his voice. "You sure about that?" He replied, punctuated by the large array of his ship mounted weapons training on the group of Militia. "Now, get the hell away from my ship." He growled, all pretenses of civility gone.

The freelancer watched as the Militia slowly but surely filed off his ship. Eventually it was just him and a lone Militia pilot on the gangplank. "Get going." He grunted.

"...So… this is it, huh?" The scarred asked.

"You know how to find me." He grumbled.

The woman opened her mouth to speak, paused, then smiled. "I guess I do. I'll be seeing you around."

"Mmhmm." He grunted again. "Don't get caught in the jet wash." He instructed as he turned away to walk back into his ship.

Heeding his instructions, she jogged down the ramp and away from the ship. Moments later, the Cargo Freightliner retracted its door as the engines began to spool back up with a series of clicks that cresendoed into an ear-splitting roar. The 6-4 lieutenant watched as the ship rocked through the sky and into the clouds before the bassy scream of a warp jump engine firing preceded a sudden silence.

With no other reason to watch the sky she made her way back to her allies. She offered herself a faint little smile. She would definitely be seeing Wraith again, and much sooner than he thought.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Its been a long while since I've last updated. I've been incredibly busy with school, working and life in general (I got my AA degree and I'm about to transfer to a 4 year, and now I'm working 2 jobs 7days/week). Still, I haven't forgotten about this story. I wanted to make this chapter really good as I (hopefully) get back into more regular writing. Let me know what you guys and girls think, and as always, thanks for the read!**

Vacation. As long as he had been "Wraith" the concept had been largely foreign to him. That wasn't to say he didn't know the meaning of the word. It was just a thought he never really entertained. Sure, he would get suggestions and urges from his allies to take a vacation, and he would always say he would consider it, although, those were always hollow words. So now that he was actually going on a vacation, he felt like he was at a loss.

Now that he thought about it, he hadn't been on a vacation since he was with _her_ , Samantha. That was more than two years ago. He was of a mixed opinion when he thought of that, pushing thoughts of her to the back of his mind. He wouldn't let negative thoughts ruin or deny his vacation. Wraith needed this, because for the first time he could remember, he felt genuinely tired, exhausted—fatigued.

Without much internal debate, he had alerted his pilot and crew and they were off to one of his hideaways. He had recalled the location from his earlier memories, shortly after their… separation. He chose that location in particular for its seclusion and scenery, at least what he could recall of the locale.

Just before they finished their trip to their newest destination he was interrupted by Vi, who was still housed within the android he had used as an emergency body. "Pilot." She announced herself, "While I am glad that you are getting some rest, I must inquire: What shall you have me do about my current situation?" She stated rather matter of factly.

Wraith was expecting this question. Without missing a beat he replied with, "First things first, I'm going to get you set back up within a Titan. I think the Monarch will do for now. I'll see about buying you a new Northstar frame when I can. I'll probably need to refit you with a hot-swapping core. Then I can see about relaxing." He informed her as he made his way to the common area of his ship. At this news he noticed VI's new face fall, her immaculate features frowning with a tinge of sadness. Taking note of this Wraith paused, causing Vi to stop with equal parts concern and fear. "Vi, do you want to be back in a Titan?"

She paused from the sudden question and the weight of intensity behind it. Nevertheless she responded with a stout, "I am fond of this body. To discard of it would be a shame." Despite her stoic demeanor, Wraith could still make out the subtle tinges of sadness, fear.

He opened his mouth to speak, paused for a moment and then calmly replied with, "I need you back in a Titan." Upon seeing her crestfallen look he added, "I'm not saying I'll get rid of the android, but I need to get you back into fighting order." hoping to placate her thoughts.

"I understand, pilot." Vi responded, taking note to look into her emotion subroutine libraries, ashamed at her lack of control over her expressions.

The matter concluded, Wraith nodded, "I'll contact you when we land." He grunted with a short sigh. Turning out of the room and towards the bridge he nodded as he passed Natalie. Upon reaching the bridge of his ship he heard the sound of video games being paused. Interest piqued—as Zero never really paused her games unless she absolutely had to—he paused.

He didn't have to wait for long as she turned around in the chair to look at him, bags under her eyes. Before she could speak however Wraith asked, "You stay up all night?" Nodding to the paused game on one of his view screens.

Getting the implied meaning of his question she responded with a withdrawn, "...They keep the nightmares away…" She muttered as she broke eye contact. She took a deep breath before looking the man in the eye and asking, "Can you train me to be a Pilot?" Wraith stood in silence, almost shocked at her request. When he didn't immediately respond she sagged her shoulders a little, assuming he would deny her.

Instead, Zero was surprised when he responded with, "Think it over, make sure that's really what you want." Wraith sighed, hiding his concern for his young pilot. He had become her guardian of sort during the year and a half he had known the teenager. He had found her when she failed at pickpocketing the freelancer in a busy open-air market on an IMC planet. She had apparently been arrested for delinquency—which to IMC laws could mean anything—and subsequently escaped after a week in captivity, being subject to abuse, torture and sodomized rape. She was barefoot, still in her orange prison jumpsuit, covering herself in a stolen merchant poncho and scared.

When he had stopped her, he could see the despair and desperation in her eyes at the thought of going back to prison. Feeling sympathy for the terrified child he made her a proposition, "...prove your usefulness and I won't turn you in."

She had told him that she could fly anything he put her in.

True to her word, she delivered on her promise and did so in spades. Not only could she fly every aircraft he threw at her, she could do so with extreme skill all while making it look easy. Needless to say he had immediate use of her skill, she had been an invaluable asset for Wraith in the early months of their arrangement. Somewhere along the way however she went from being an asset to being dear to him. He had almost became her father figure or older brother in a way—from subsequent conversations with her he had learned that her family was an abusive and broken one.

Zero just nodded her head silently, gaining a far off look for a few moments before she turned her attention to the game console in front of her. Failing to suppress a yawn she murmured in discontent when Wraith insisted that she get some sleep. When she put up weak protests Wraith took it upon himself to carry her back to bed, her tired body putting up superficial resistance as he lifted the thin young woman out of her chair and carried her back to her own bunk. Predictably she fell asleep on the way there, Wraith smiled down at her for a moment, pulling the covers up and catching the light as he left. Admittedly he had a soft spot for children—and Zero especially—true he babied her sometimes but he wanted to give her some semblance of a normal life, she deserved as much instead of the abusive and cruel life she had experienced in her short, almost 18 years of existence

Due to his resident pilot catching some much needed rest, Wraith took over the helm, taking his spot in the captain's chair. Due to being a civilian class freighter it also functioned as the navigator station as well pretty much everything else. The bridge was a compact, intimate place, there were several chairs about but each station performed a multitude of jobs as civilian ships seldom had the crews, space or budget for larger, more specialized stations.

From his seat he stared out at the black void of space, highlighted by pinpricks of light from the various stars around the universe. He tapped a few glowing glyphs on the dashboard before him, causing a holographic overlay to project itself upon his forward viewport. He looked at the several icons that represented his ship and the surrounding celestial bodies. He quickly picked out the glowing amber line that led into a distant system. Eager to leave Militia space he spooled up his warp jump engines and watched as the fabric of space began to distort and tear before being enveloped in a white flash of brilliance.

As the ship began to knife it's way through wherever the warp jump took vessels, the viewport throughout the ship began to close their armored shutters. As the bridge dimmed considerably he checked one of the numerous displays around the command console. One of these displays was a transit monitor which not only showed his planned flight path but also estimated the amount of time he would spend in Warp to get there. He watched for several moments as the timer ticked down from seven minutes before he turned his elsewhere. Checking various status displays and fuel readings he busied himself with making sure his ship wouldn't fail on him during or shortly after Warp.

Thankfully, nothing catastrophic occurred during the jump, and the cargo freighter-turned-warship arrived at it's destination safely. A planet called Exos, owned and protected by one of the only companies larger and more powerful than the IMC. ARK Industries. Fortunately, they had little reason to display such vested interest in the Frontier as the IMC had. Not to say that the Militia hadn't tried to "liberate" planets under ARK control. But when your opponent had technology and weapons that makes the IMC look like a ragtag group of guerrilla fighters and no qualms about using overwhelming force, people tended to stay away and not cause trouble—IMC included.

ARK Industries was so averse to trouble that the moment Wraith's ship had left Warp he received a Priority One transmission.

"Attention Civilian vessel, you are to power down all weapons and disable your shields immediately. You will be subject to a mandatory security screening. Switch to channel six two point three three six." A voice nearly barked over the radio channel. "Failure to comply within the next ten seconds will be seen as a sign of aggression." The voice finished, even as several orbital defense platforms targeted his ship—their turrets spinning silently to lock on to his relatively insignificant ship. Only two other ships were present—non-existent security, even by ARK Industries standards—however, Wraith knew that these ships were more than enough to thwart any would be raiders or invaders. And if they weren't, it would only take one call for a disproportionate amount of reinforcements to arrive.

As Wraith had no desire to be turned to molten slag, he wordlessly followed the instructions and watched as a small transport ship was escorted by two heavy interceptors. Their stark white paint scheme glittering against the dark void of space.

"Civilian vessel, this is Nomad 2-9 prepare coupler 2-B for docking." The pilot of the transport vessel radioed, the flawless transmission sounding as if the person was speaking lowly into his ear.

Wraith keyed the coupler from his command console, watching as one of his displays switched to an external camera that showed the exterior of docking coupler 2-B. Red lights flashed green as the door switched to receiving mode. Shortly after, the transport vessel began docking. "Civilian vessel, do you have any contraband or weapons to declare?"

"I have multiple weapons and military grade vehicles aboard." Wraith was short.

"Are you authorized to be in possession of these articles?" A different voice replied, as Wraith made his way to the coupler where the ARK Industries inspection team was waiting to cycle through.

"I have a Class One equipment license." Wraith sighed exasperatedly despite himself.

The inspection team cycled through with two guards having their weapons drawn. Wraith simply raised an eyebrow in annoyance. "Are you the man I was speaking to?" The second voice over the radio spoke. When Wraith crossed his arms and nodded the man continued, asking, "Can I ask a few questions?" Another nod from Wraith.

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm a resident."

"What's the origin of your cargo?"

"Battlefield scavenger. Mercenary."

"How many crew?"

"Four."

"Identification and travel records." The security officer ordered even as his crew searched the ship.

Wraith reached into a pants pocket and gave him an ID card whilst he transferred his digital travel records to the ARK Industries employee.

The officer scrolled through several pages of logs before he raised an eyebrow. "You visited a Militia planet?"

"Finishing a business transaction." Wraith grunted prompting the other man to hum in response.

The two stood there staring at each other in silence. The only occasional reprieve the sound of barely comprehensible radio chatter.

Eventually, the others returned, their gear and heavy footfalls announced with clattering fanfare that echoed down the metallic bulkheads. One nodded followed by a gruff, "We're clear".

"Any declarations?"

"Two and a half class twos. One class three and six class fours. He's got a class one Companion Droid and enough equipment to outfit a small army." One of the guards described. "Also one fugitive. Child. About two years missing. Non-violent crime."

The security officer waved his inspection team away, nodding to Wraith he grunted, "Looks like you're in the clear. Don't cause trouble."

And with that, the ARK Industries inspection unit filed back into their ship. A moment later, they were away, cruising back to the orbital platform they came from.

Free to proceed, Wraith made his way back to the bridge of his ship before he keyed in coordinates for his home.

Planetside, things were much more lax in terms of security. Peacekeeping forces were rare and most of the populace went about in a idyllic fashion. They seemed to have little care for causing violence or other forms of disruption. Life here was like living in a permanent paradise. Which made the locale a choice spot for Wraith to come and relax, well he had originally chosen the planet for that reason, that and the neutral nature of the location.

That said, even the safety of paradise grows stale. To remedy this, Wraith chose a seedier area of this side of the planet. It was a little rougher around the edges and not so prim and proper. Over tundras and mountain ranges, and past seas of rolling hills brought him to a smaller trading port with ample room for private compounds and plenty of breathtaking views.

A ways off from the snow white beaches and azure waters was a shipyard—dual purpose, supporting both space and sea craft—that had enough space to accommodate his modified freighter. As he swung his ship around for a proper landing he was hailed over his cockpit radio.

"Wraaaaaith." The voice drawled in greeting. "Long time no see." He could hear the smile in his voice.

"Hucker." Wraith grunted.

"Pen Six is yours." The man smiled, directing Wraith to a massive concrete pit, several hundred meters long.

"Thanks." Wraith acknowledged, bring down his freighter with a roaring scream of engines. A relatively soft thump of his ship coming to a rest upon the tarmac alerted him of a successful landing as he began to shutdown his ship's systems. As he did so, he keyed his ship's PA system. "We've landed." He relayed into the intercom as he began to exit the bridge of his ship.

Making his way back to the common area he ran into Natalie. "Hey, Captain," she greeted.

"Nat'" Wraith returned, taking no notice of her packed bags.

"Since we're making an extended stay, figured I would visit my family." His engineer told him. "It's been awhile, and I'm pretty sure they're worried." She smiled ruefully.

"Need a ride?" Wraith asked, offering to transport his engineer.

"No, I've got it." She shook her head, smiling at his offer nonetheless, "How long are you staying?"

"Awhile. You've got time." He answered reassuringly with a chuckle.

"Thanks, Captain." Natalie smiled giving the man a hug before leaving to pack the rest of her bags.

He stood for a moment as she left before moving on. As he made his way into his room he passed his other pilot, Morgan. He looked to her as she stood up to greet him. Surprised about her lack of crutches, he stopped, intrigued.

Noticing his starring, she suppressed a little laugh, "Still got a bad limp, but I can walk now." She smiled, taking a few steps to show her recovery progress. Unfortunately, she didn't get very far before she stumbled.

Catching her with a frown, he replied with "So you still need crutches." Shaking his head at her stubbornness. "Until you have a _slight_ limp you're using those crutches. I don't want you getting hurt alright?"

Morgan smiled at his concern and replied with an embarrassed, "Alright, alright." Getting back under the support of her crutches she looked back up at Wraith. "We stayin' here for a bit, yeah?" She prodded as she glanced to her packed bags.

Noticing her bags, he began to speak when she beat him to it. "Don't worry, you won't get rid of me that easily." She smiled. "Always wanted to see your digs."

"It's nothing special." He replied with a shrug, suppressing a little grin.

* * *

"Requesting permission for leave, Ma'am." Lieutenant Saei requested.

"Granted." Gates grunted, too busy looking over joint operation plans. After their last mission they had gone back to the drawing board, trying to fix the state of their resistance groups. The SRS was crippled and the 6-4 was in a similar state. Barker's ACES were practically non-existent at this point. Suffering crippling losses during their last mission had hurt this side of the Militia very badly. The paranoid and oft drunk man showed this in his rampant drunkenness, belligerent mood swings and increased frequency in drinking.

"I've got a lot of logistics to handle, besides, after that last mission... I think we all could use a break." Gates added, looking up with bags under her eyes. "Just be careful out there." She muttered.

"Thanks, Gates." Lieutenant Saei replied, a soft smile of gratitude gracing her scarred features.

Turning away from the leader of the 6-4, Lieutenant Saei stepped out of the dim room and into a throng of people who paid her no heed as they busied themselves with their own tasks. She was within a Militia stronghold hidden off of a remote coast on Harmony. The only way in or out was through warp jumps, any ship coming through conventional means was immediately intercepted. While she didn't really understand the need for secrecy, given that this was the headquarters for the Frontier Militia. However, that also meant that people didn't question what you were doing, or why you were there. Simply being in the base was—for the most part—clearance enough.

She proved this my waltzing through most of the base unmolested, only getting stopped when she entered the main hangar. "Hey, 6-4, where to?" A Militia soldier wearing a green, red and tan jumpsuit and an aviation helmet yelled over the ambience of the room.

Walking to meet the man halfway she yelled back, "Tannison".

"Alright. Head to the three Crows at landing zone five." He pointed to a cluster of ships and equipment on the far side of the hangar. "Any one of those can take you where you need to go." He instructed.

"Thanks." She yelled back, leaning in towards the man to speak into his ear as a heavy duty trolley roared by.

"Don't mention it." The man replied with a hearty slap to her shoulder.

With a nod of gratitude, she took off towards the Crows, walking with a sense of purpose as she strode confidently across the hangar. As she was walking she passed several soldiers she recognized who gave their own nods or raised hands of greeting. One of the groups she passed contained individuals she was much more acquainted with. Given that this was her former squad, it made sense.

"Hey, LT!" One man drawled, drawing the attention of the others. "Glad to see you're okay. Where you headed?"

"Tannison." She was short, as usual, however there was a sense of familiarity in the inflection of her words.

"Oh-ho! A date?" The man teased, earning a scowl and a cluster of chuckles from the others.

"Come on, we all know Bishop ain't the romantic type." Another tried to deflect.

"I don't know… she did have that episode about being married back on that ship." Another mused.

"Really guys? Come on... Cut her some slack." A fourth—Liam—groused.

"Stop being a kiss-ass, Liam. It's never going to happen between you two."

"Fu—" Liam began to argue.

"I'm going on leave for a bit." She replied briskly, cutting them all off.

"You? On vacation?" One guffawed. "Now I've seen everything."

Instead of replying she just sighed and began to walk off when she was stopped as another person spoke out.

"I'm coming with you." The voice belonged to one of the few people who weren't partaking in that last bit of commentary, her younger sister, Aeryn.

"Me too." Her younger brother added, starting to follow his two sisters.

"Not without clearance, you're not." Bishop snapped back.

"Granted." Came the stern, almost motherly voice of Commander Briggs.

The lieutenant watched as her former squadmates fumbled into crisp salutes. Electing to forego the display of respect, she caught a raised eyebrow from Briggs.

"You're lucky you have the skills to backup that attitude of yours." Briggs scowled before cracking a smile. "If those two want to go with you, they're welcome to join you." She said dismissing the siblings. "It's going to be a while before we're back in the position to go on the offensive again. For now, the SRS will be laying low, we'll stick to emergency defensive strike teams. I can do without two Pilots." She explained, before becoming much more serious. "Don't let anything happen to my pilots, Saei."

The lieutenant turned around vehemently, "I thought I made it _real_ clear that my family is more important than the Militia." She growled. She stared down the de facto leader of the SRS Militia until her brother took her attention.

"Come on. Let's go." He said simply, walking with his sister, Aeryn, towards the Crow dropships at the end of the hangar.

As the three siblings walked away, one of her former squadmates approached Briggs. "I heard that Bishop has a real short list of enemies. If I were you I'd be careful."

"You think she'd defect?"

"She's 6-4, technically not Militia."

"Gates and I… don't always see eye to eye, but we're damn near the same thing. Still, I don't think that she would be able to just up and change sides."

"I'd say you're more liable to be shot, than have Bishop defect." He chuckled.

"You think she'd _shoot_ me?" Briggs asked incredulously.

"Wouldn't put it past her." He said with a hint of dark humor in finality.

Fortunately for Lieutenant Saei, she wasn't accosted by any more Militia know-it-alls. It felt as if ever since she had left the smothering grasp of Sarah Briggs, the Militia Commander had tried to be even more controlling than before. Generally the 6-4 and SRS got along just fine, however there was all the little stuff that had built up and had started to get irritating. Briggs's micromanagement had just added onto that.

She let out a sigh before looking to the interior of the dropship, filled with various personnel all looking to leave the secretive base. She found a place to stand as her younger siblings found a place to sit. Due to the cramped interior, she ended up pressed up against her younger brother. "Hope you don't mind." She muttered with an apologetic smile.

"Nuh uh." Beckett grunted back. Looking up at his sister past her compressed but still ample bosom.

"Enjoy the view, pervert." She smirked as the ship lurched as the engines all kicked on at once.

"Attention all passengers, we will be warp jumping momentarily, stand by while we perform pre-flight checks." The pilot gargled over the intercom.

Sure enough, three minutes later the ship shot out of the hangar, rose to minimum altitude and jumped. Moments later, the growl of the warp engines spooling down greeted them to a pseudo-militia ship port. Touching down past a cluster of parked ships and shipping containers, the Crow groaned as weight settled before the roar of the engines cut off.

Soon enough the three siblings filed off the ship with the rest of the Militia servicemen and women. Thanks lieutenant turned to speak to the other two when her sister Aeryn spoke first. "So, what are we doing?"

"I'm…" She paused, gathering resolve. "...going to go Regen… you two find us a starship running to Exos." She sighed out.

"Regen?!" Beckett asked, concerned. "Why?!"

"I need to be better, to keep us safe. The IMC might not have numbers on us, but they're much more skilled than we are. I don't want to risk running into a better pilot. That's the kind of mistake you can only make once." The eldest Saei explained somberly.

"That's dangerous, Sam!" Beckett protested.

"So is getting outclassed." Aeryn added.

"I'll be fine, Beckett." She smiled, appreciative of his concern. "Just find us a ship, alright?"

"I… alright… alright." Beckett agreed reluctantly, still opposed to the idea, but knowing better than to push the issue.

* * *

And with that issue—for the most part—resolved, the siblings went their separate ways. "Again." Wraith barked, watching as Zero failed to counter the Holo-Pilot's right hook.

Zero groaned in frustration and pain. While the damage and pain she was feeling was a simulation, it felt real enough for the young woman. She struggled to stand and leveled a glare at Wraith. "This is too _hard_." She complained.

"Too _hard_?" He parroted, confused.

"I thought you said you were going to start me out easy." Zero huffed as she stood up.

"This is easy." Wraith shook his head. "It's been throwing the same right hook for the last ten attempts. I would have thought you would have at least dodged it." He explained.

"It's too fast." She whined. "And this harness is heavy." Zero attempted to excuse her poor performance, picking at her training harness.

Wraith paused, considering her words. Zero had pretty fast reflexes and dexterity, something he credited to her excessive video game use. However, pilots generally had unnatural or near superhuman speed and reflexes.

"Alright." Wraith agreed. "I'll shut down the Sim pod. Take a break, we can do some slower one-on-one sessions." He explained as the world around her frizzled out of existence before everything went dark. Zero had a weird feeling of phantom pain that was washed away by intense but brief nausea as her body got reacclimated with reality. As the Sim pod opened she recoiled at the stark contrast in light.

Down in the basement of Wraith's vacation home was a miniature bunker and panic room. Aside from that he had various weapons and equipment, as well as a pair of Sim-pods. She never had the chance to get to use one, let alone see a model in the flesh. The things were insanely expensive and practically every gamer's dream. Despite her initial experience with the pods, she was still excited about the prospect of using one.

Her excitement however would have to wait as she suffered from the after effects of her "easy" training. As she struggled to get out of her pod as her eyes adjusted to the sharp contrast in light she was assisted by Wraith.

"You look like shit. Are you okay?" He asked, concern in his voice. He sounded different, human, kind.

She blushed, accompanied by a tightening in her chest. "Y-yeah." She smiled embarrassed and nervous at the same time. "I'm fine." She murmured.

Wraith just smiled, pulling her out of the Pod and helping her regain her footing. "Come on, let's take a break."

The two left the expansive basement area, which was easily as big as his house above ground. Upon clearing the lower flight of stairs, Wraith turned to Zero. "You hungry?" He questioned.

"Kind of." Came back her reply, sounding much more reserved and closed off, reverting to her usual demeanor.

"Alright, I'll get us something to eat." He said as he reached for a tablet to make a delivery order.

"What sounds good?"

"Pizza."

"A girl after my own heart." Wraith laughed, earning an embarrassed and shy smile from the girl. Despite his teasing, he ordered a couple of pizzas. "Should be here soon."

"What? Grub?" Morgan asked, all smiles as she hobbled into the room. She was shortly followed by Vi.

"Glad to see you smiling, pilot." His AI commented as it entered the living room, gracing them with a smile of her own. In the two days that they have been here, Vi has spent the entire time exploring his property as well as learning how to be more human. While she didn't have all of the mannerisms and subtleties down, she was passable as a human.

Seeing her jogged his memory of something he had to do today though. "Oh!" Wraith snapped his fingers, rising from his seat. "I forgot we had to pick up your new Northstar chassis!" He said as he rushed to find a jacket and shoes to put on.

Morgan and Zero smiled at seeing Wraith scramble to get ready. Vi, on the other hand had a slightly crestfallen look. Upon seeing her face he paused, a tinge of guilt painting his features as he frowned slightly. "I'm not going to force you back into the machine, we just need to pick it up. I already paid for it, and I told them I would stop by before noon." He explained.

Thanks to their neural link, she could tell he was telling the truth. Vi suppressed a melancholy smile and agreed to go with the man.

As they were headed out the door he paused, "Ah!... Zero, Morg' the food 's already paid for!" He shouted as he left his home. A short jog down a stone paved path through some well manicured landscaping had led him to his driveway, where Vi was waiting.

Standing beside a large flatbed truck was his Titan AI, Vi, waiting patiently for him to arrive. Wraith unlocked the doors with his key fob before he helped her into the passenger side seat of the cab of his truck. It was only a moment before Wraith had climbed into the driver side of the cab. In his haste, he dropped his keys as he fumbled to get them into the ignition. Bending down, he grasped his keys before he sat back up too quickly, hitting his head on the steering column. As he drew in a hissed breath at the pain, Vi giggled.

"Are you okay?" She laughed. Wraith paused to look up at her, embarrassed.

"Y-yeah." He replied softly, rubbing the back of his head as he sat back up.

Slotting the key into the ignition, he was relieved that the vehicle turned over instantaneously. As the engine roared to life before petering out to a rough grumble he threw the truck into drive before taking off to the local markets.

"You seem awfully excited, and… stressed?" She asked confused. "What's so special about getting a new platform for myself?" She asked, genuinely curious about the occasion that was causing such strong, conflicting feelings within her pilot.

"You'll see…" he smiled at her.

Fortunately for Vi, she didn't have to wait long. Ten minutes later, they were parked outside of a machine shop on a side street off of a very busy plaza. She had followed Wraith into the building, first choosing to stay in the truck due to her aversion to so many people. However, she found the distance from Wraith, with so many unknown variables nearby disquieting, so she had followed him inside a few minutes later.

"Ah, there she is." He commented as she entered the room, drawing a few stares from the gathered people who were—moments ago—working. "This is Vi."

" _That's_ your Titan AI?" One of the workers, an older man who looked to be in charge, asked incredulously.

"Yep. VI-3195." Wraith replied casually.

"Don't tell me you had sex with it." The man deadpanned, a frown on his face.

"No. That's just an emergency body. My Northstar was destroyed." He dismissed the old man's presumption. Then, much quieter he added, "She almost didn't make it…"

"Wait! Your Northstar? Your _baby?!_ " The man asked aghast.

"Yeah, it got fucking wrecked." Wraith groused as he crossed his arms, frowning.

"That thing was a beauty. An amazing work of passion." The old man reminisced. "One of our greatest projects…" He finished with a curse, hanging his head in anger. "What did it in?" He growled, eyes upturned to stare at Wraith past his eyebrows.

"An Ares…." Wraith sighed.

"Fucking Ares…" The man glowered, "Damn things are a beast. A magnificent machine… amazing engineering… but it's fuckin' cheating. Like bringin' a shotgun to a fist fight." He spat. "Still…" He smiled mischievously, "I think I have something that'll cheer you up."

Intrigued, Wraith followed the man into a much larger. As he crossed the threshold his mouth nearly dropped.

"A prototype. From Hammond Robotics." He swept his arm to the unpainted Titan adorned in various Hammond Robotics regalia. "They're calling it 'Northstar Prime'. It's your basic Northstar, but better. Sleeker, angled armor for better protection and stealth capabilities. Improved servos, better thrusters, a _much_ better electronics system. It's almost a shame to be giving this to you." The man finished with a complaint, staring at Wraith. "But…" the man sighed. "You've been good to us. Great business, selling us rare, expensive parts for dirt cheap, helping the community…" The senior replied, extolling virtue after virtue. "If selling you this'll help you help this community, then that's a noble price to pay."

Wraith, still a little stunned at what he was about to take home, struggled to find words. "Th-Thanks… Just… wow."

"Speechless huh?" The man chuckled heartily. "Come on, let's get this paperwork done. My boys will get it strapped to your truck and get it covered."

Wraith nodded, snapping himself out of his stupor. "...Right... Vi, come on." He called after his AI.

Fortunately for Vi who, admittedly, was excited at the prospect of having a prototype Titan to call a body, the process of buying the Titan was very quick. And soon they were on their way home.

Walking out of the building, they had made it back home and had successfully unloaded his new Titan when he had to run back out.

"I'll be back, it'll be quick." He said as he headed back out. This time, instead of taking his truck, he took an electric motorcycle. A moment to secure his full-faced helmet and he was off. The soft whine of his high powered electric engine accompanied him as he throttled through a long stretch of open road. He was only giving the machine half throttle but he was moving at a steady clip, well over 145 kilometers per hour. As he glanced down at his information displays he frowned, having less than a quarter charge remaining. Cursing silently to himself for not charging this the last time he rode it, he made a detour. He rolled to a stop at an intersection before banking a sharp left into a charging station.

As he rolled to a stop at an available station, he kicked down his kickstand as he shut his engine off. Swinging his right leg over the back of his motorcycle, he unzipped his riding jacket where his wallet and a holdout pistol was stashed—he never left the house without it. He had just finished removing his helmet and began to reach for his wallet underneath his pistol when a voice called out to him.

"You sure did make this easy." A severe sounding feminine voice said with a hint of self-righteous humor.

He paused, turning to see a woman he recognized. He had held her and a bunch of others "captive" as he ferried them back to Militia space. She also looked related to someone he knew, if the striking facial, bodily and personality similarities meant anything.

He frowned, mood turning dark. The woman pressed on. "You're going to come with me. And please... don't make this difficult." She said as she flashed a wicked looking knife.

Wraith gave her a flat look before replying with, "Leave me alone. Go bother someone else."

The woman scowled stepping forward as she muttered, "Tried doing this the easy way…" under her breath.

Waiting as she approached, getting into position to put her knife to his neck as he began to withdraw his pistol. The moment he felt a blade against his neck he had his pistol pressed into her stomach. Her cocky attitude faltered.

"Drop your knife or I drop you." Wraith said shortly, eyes boring into her with no uncertainty that he would shoot her, right here, in broad daylight. Surprisingly, she compiled, her knife clattering to the ground. "Now, get to walking, and don't stop until I can't see you anymore." Wraith ordered.

She growled but complied, walking backwards with her hands up until she rounded the corner of the mini-mart attached to the charging stations.

Wasting no time, Wraith payed for a quick recharging, all whilst keeping his head on a swivel, wary of any more potential threats.

Blessedly, there was no need to be paranoid as he saw nobody else after that short altercation. With his motorcycle recharged, he resecured his items, strapped his helmet back on and took off, wheels screeching as they peeled out. He just hoped his encounter was an isolated incident. Unfortunately, his vacation wouldn't be as relaxing as he wanted.


	9. Chapter 9

Zero struggled with her breathing, not used to such strenuous physical activity. The young adult hadn't run this much in almost two years. Wraith had told her if she was really serious about becoming a pilot he would train her like one. He had even gone a step above, training her on a regimen that was up to his own standards. Today was day one, she had to run a kilometer in full gear, without stopping. Then Wraith told her she would have to fire a R97 full auto into a target one hundred meters away without missing, before they would continue on with her training.

When Zero complained, Wraith pointed out that the IMC's pilot training program—one of the most harrowing and rigorous in the Frontier—made their trainees run ten kilometers and hit a target with their entirety of their magazine to be within a ten centimeter grouping. Regardless of starting her out easier, his end goal was to have her run fifteen kilometers without stopping and hit a target with a five centimeter grouping. Combat engagements often came down to little things like faster reaction time and accuracy. He wanted to give her the best possible edge over potential opponents if he could.

Still, he wasn't as brutal as he could have been. He wanted her to have a fighting chance at her training—despite wishing that she would choose a less dangerous desire to pursue. So, he started her off easy. He figured if she couldn't get through this, she wouldn't have a chance of being a pilot, let alone survive a combat situation.

Although she complained, she was determined to give it her best effort. However, despite her intentions she hadn't really made any progress at all since she wasn't exactly fit, or strong. But, she made up for it in effort and a willingness to improve. From what he remembered from his own Pilot certification training, that was more than what most people showed.

Wraith watched as she lapped his housing complex for the last time, raggedly crossing a line of stone tiles that they agreed to designate as a start-finish line. She jogged out to the backyard where Wraith had set up a group of targets in the expansive landscape that his house sat within. She took a moment to take a breath before she shouldered the weapon. Showing much more determination and resolve than he expected, she confidently emptied the magazine downrange.

Expectedly, several rounds missed their intended target. However, Wraith had to admit, the fact that she had managed to get at least half of the magazine on target was impressive for a first time shooter. "Clear the chamber, release the magazine and engage the safety." He instructed as he walked down range to retrieve her target, passing Zero as she fumbled through his instructions.

Zero stood in anxious excitement as she waited for Wraith to return. She couldn't see his expression due to his helmet—thus, she couldn't accurately gauge his reaction—but she was pretty confident of her shooting. Especially given her lack of prior shooting experience.

"You did better than expected for your first time..." He rumbled. "...Definite need for improvement if you want to be a pilot though." He said pointing to the surface of the target. "Your grouping is loose." Wraith criticized as he traced his gloved hand across the person shaped sheet of steel. "You should feel the weapon, and take the lead. Don't let the gun dictate where you aim." He explained.

"Easier said than done." Zero huffed, still a little out of breath.

"Get good enough, and it just becomes second nature." He retorted. "Anyways, let's take a break. We won't be able to build your stamina or your accuracy in one day."

Zero nodded, masking her elation that she wouldn't have to run anymore for awhile. As the two headed inside they began to remove parts of their gear. Helmets and gloves were the first to go, followed by vests and harnesses. Zero needed help occasionally, struggling to remove some of her gear. Wraith helped with that. Zero, once back in her iconic orange prison jumpsuit, scratched at the growing stubble of her hair.

Wraith turned to look at her, skin slick with sweat that was starting to dry. "Hop in the shower, I'll meet you in the kitchen." He instructed, causing Zero to wipe away some sweat from her forehead before agreeing.

Wraith waited for her to leave his sight before he went to find Morgan and Vi. Vi was helping Morgan with her physical therapy, speeding along the injured pilot's recovery. As a trade off, Morgan told Vi stories of how she and Wraith met almost two years ago. Vi had been an avid listener and the two had hit it off quite well.

To nobody's surprise, Wraith entered his den to the sound of Morgan's almost musical voice speaking excitedly with hints of Irish inflections in her voice. "—en he said, 'You're nah' dying today.' and long story short tha's how I ended up here." Morgan regaled as Vi led her through transitioning between stretches.

"You have quite the history with my pilot." Vi commented as she assisted Morgan.

"Talkin' 'bout me?" Wraith asked as he walked by the pair.

"Hello, Pilot."Vi greeted as Morgan smiled.

"Figured I'd trade a few stories." Morgan shrugged.

"Great… only the good ones I hope?" He asked with a slightly embarrassed, yet playful smile.

"Depends on your definition of 'good'." Morgan teased. Suddenly, she turned serious, addressing Vi to grouse, "When will my leg get better? Back to normal?"

"I lack biomedical scanning hardware to answer that question. However, I would estimate eleven days." Vi answered robotically, sounding strange given her newly human sounding voice.

Groaning theatrically at Vi's answer she flopped backwards whining, "That's too loooooong!"

This earned a muted, girlish giggle from Vi, "Very mature, Miss Cuinn."

Morgan narrowed her eyes at the drop of her last name. "Hey… now tha's no fair." She murmured. "You don't… I don't want you to call me by my last name." She was firm, all sense of joviality gone from her mood.

Vi paused, noting the change in Morgan's demeanor. "I understand."

"Don't like your last name?" Wraith teased as he began to walk towards the Kitchen.

"She didn't earn it." Morgan complained.

"Hmph." Wraith chuckled. "Right."

"Hey it's the opposite for you, Devin."

Wraith paused and frowned—furious—and had to pause before he did something he regretted. "Morgan, don't."

"Ah…" She fumbled at his severity, at a loss for words. "...I-I'm sorry."

Wraith sighed out raggedly, ashamed that he reacted in such a way. "No… I'm sorry… I shouldn't have reacted like that."

"You don't have to be 'Wraith' all the time you know…" Morgan said softly.

"It's easier…"

"Is it?" The female pilot asked, skeptical.

"I… don't know anymore." He sighed out, voice tinged with sadness. Or perhaps it was regret.

Did he regret what he was, what he had become? Of that, he wasn't sure if he could give himself a straight answer. Two years prior if somebody had told him who he would have become—what he would have become—he would have never believed them. Now… there was definitely a part of him that had begun to come back, and was loathe with himself. Regardless, he pushed those thoughts from his mind, onto more pressing matters.

"Pilot, you wanted me to remind you of scheduling events for your helmsman today." Vi remarked, attempting to dissipate the charged atmosphere of the room.

At this, Wraith perked up, willing to put the moment behind him. "Right, she's told me before that she wished she had a 'normal' childhood. So I figured we could have a regular day out, having fun." He replied in the affirmative. Turning to Morgan he added, "You're welcome to tag along, if you don't push yourself."

Morgan smiled, "Me? Push myself? Never!" She guffawed.

"Good." Wraith noted with finality.

As they concluded their talk, agreeing on their plans for the day Zero returned from upstairs, skin slightly pink and smelling strongly of soap. "Hey." She commented as she looked over the handrails as she descended the stairs.

"Hey, yerself." Morgan shot back.

"Hello, Zero." Vi replied, waving a hand, practicing performing bodily gestures with different greetings and farewells.

"So what's up?" She asked, as she looked to the faces of her friends, her family.

"We're going to have a day out." Wraith said as he fussed Zero's hair.

"You know, act like normal people." Morgan joked, "All boring and stuff."

At that Zero stifled a laugh, "Right. Boring."

"Well, let's get going. We've got a lot of boring to make up for." Wraith said, ushering the others outside, to a vehicle that was able to accommodate them all.

Wraith waited for the others to enter the vehicle, helping Vi enter when she struggled to effectively gauge the arc of the door.

"Thank you, Pilot."

"No problem." He said simply in response.

The drive to their destination—a massive amusement park—was a long, but uneventful one. Several hours had passed before they reached their destination. "Damn… about time." Wraith groused as they arrived at their destination. This had the effect of gathering everyone's attention.

"Bloody hell… this place is huge…" Morgan murmured in awe as she took in the expansive mass of attractions.

"Any idea where we should start?" Wraith asked, at a loss as to where to begin tackling such a colossal endeavor.

"How about we just hit the most fun looking attractions?" Zero mumbled as a suggestion, trying to hide excitement and her timid nature.

"We are attacking the various attractions?" Vi asked, confused.

"It's a figure of speech, Vi."

There was a pause. "Database updated." Vi reported.

Wraith rolled his eyes but decided not to comment on the strange exchange.

Instead, Zero fidgeted excitedly, barely able to contain her eagerness or maintain her aloof facade. "Are we just going to stand here all day?" She asked.

"Excited are we?" Wraith asked with an amused smirk.

"Y-yeah…" Zero stuttered as she replied, embarrassed that her excitement had betrayed her.

"Don't worry, we'll make sure you get your fill." Morgan chuckled.

"Right. Well, let's get moving." Wraith said as he began to head into the amusement park.

* * *

"This is going to be harder than I thought." Aeryn groused as she bore her gaze into the wall before her.

"What happened?" Her brother, Beckett, asked turning to look at his older sister. This also had the effect of drawing the eldest Saei's attention.

"He pulled a gun." Aeryn vented.

"He did what?" Sam asked before her visage contorted to one of rage. "What did you do?!" She yelled, catching her younger sister off guard.

Aeryn sputtered, not accustomed to being the subject of her sister's temper. "...I-I was just trying to help…"

Sam was just short of being livid. "What. Did. You. Do?" She ground out.

"I-I just pulled a knife and tried to bring him with me!" She explained.

"You tried to kidnap him?!" She asked incredulously. "I told you two to keep a low profile!"

"Hey, she was just trying t—" Beckett began.

"Shut the fuck up, Beckett!" Sam snapped. "Putting him on edge is not going to help." She took a deep breath and released it tiredly. "I appreciate your intentions, but please… don't take the initiative and let me handle this."

There was a very tense moment of silence between the three. This was broken by the middle sibling. "I'm sorry, Sam."

"No, no… I shouldn't have gone off like that." Sam apologized.

"This man, Wraith… he must be really special." Beckett huffed, still upset at being yelled at but trying to be courteous.

Sam paused, unprepared for the blunt weight of her brother's words. "He… he is." She said as her fingers idly danced across the wedding band on her hand. This didn't go unnoticed however.

"What was he like? Your husband?" Aeryn asked, nodding to her sister's ring.

Sam took on a guilty expression, even as melancholy modified her tone. "He was kind, caring, understanding, strong… someone I—" She paused, fighting against the urge to cry, even as she teared up. After clearing her throat she continued. "I betrayed him. I went behind Devin's back and betrayed him like a coward." She growled in self- loathing.

She smiled ruefully, "He wanted to help people."

"So why didn't you help him?" Aeryn asked, obviously confused.

"I wanted to help the Militia." Sam said plainly, as if it was obvious.

"And what does any of this have to do with your husband?" Beckett asked, equally confused and impatient. "We're missing a vital chain of events between then and now."

"I know he wouldn't have changed like that if I hadn't left." She replied.

"You can't blame yoursel—" Beckett started.

"Yes I can!" Sam shot back.

"So, what do you even hope to accomplish?" Sighed Aeryn.

"I want to try to patch things up, and if that doesn't work, money will." The 6-4 lieutenant explained.

Easily catching the underlying meaning of his eldest sister's words, he protested. "No. Absolutely not. You can't hire him."

"Why not?"

"He's IMC, Sam." Aeryn sighed, exasperated that she had to explain something so obvious to her elder sister.

"He's a freelancer. Not IMC." Sam countered.

"When you make your "services" so expensive that only the IMC can afford to pay you, there's hardly a sense of being "freelancer". He might as well be a permanent contractor and you know it Sam." Beckett explained protectively.

"The Militia may not be willing to pay for his skill set, but I am." Sam said, steel in her voice.

"No... You wouldn't…" Aeryn said in surprise, unsure what to think of her sister's determination. "You know they won't let you, right?"

"I'm not asking permission." Sam grunted.

"They'll just kill him." Beckett retorted. "And he would be an idiot if he didn't think so too."

Ignoring the jab, Sam replied with a breezy, "I've got a plan for that". Her face took on a shark-like predatory grin as she went into her explanation.

* * *

Laughter. Wraith had never seen his helmsman that happy. For the day, her shyness had been forgotten. She was a girl her age for the first time in a long while. It wasn't just her either, Wraith hadn't felt this light, carefree, in a long time.

They had stayed at the park until it had closed and began the trek home. "It's nice to know Wraith's right scared of rollercoasters." Morgan laughed.

Zero giggled, a cute—feminine—if somewhat muted thing. "It was pretty funny…"

"It wasn't that funny…" Wraith groused.

As the four pulled into the driveway of Wraith's complex he turned to the back seat where Zero and Vi were seated. "Zero, get out of those clothes. Vi, do you need a recharging?" He asked after instructing Zero to change her paintball stained clothes. An activity Wraith had decided to not partake in, for the sake of fairness. Morgan wasn't in a shape to play and Vi was uncomfortable in "testing her chassis so vigorously". Zero had fun though, and in the end that's what mattered.

"My energy reserves are within acceptable parameters, pilot." Vi reported softly, answering her Pilot's query.

"Ugh… fineeeee." Zero mock whined as the vehicle rolled to a halt.

As everyone began to exit the vehicle Wraith caught Morgan's gaze. "Are we still—" She asked.

"Yeah." Wraith nodded, earning a smile from Morgan.

With their evening plans confirmed both of the pilots moved to the kitchen. Wraith walked to his refrigerator, withdrawing a modest birthday cake as Morgan dimmed the lights and ushered Vi into the room.

As Morgan did that, Wraith set up the presents the two had gotten the birthday girl and set them aside, as to not block the cake.

Fortunately, the trio didn't have to wait long for Zero to emerge from the shower. "Hey, guys?" She called out at the top of the stairs as she began her descent.

"We're in 'ere, love." Morgan called out from the Kitchen.

Sure enough, Zero followed the sound of Morgan's voice, stepping into the den. Walking through the empty room past a large, L-shaped couch and wall dominating holoscreen, she steped into the adjacent hallway and then into the kitchen where the lighting had been dimmed. As Zero rounded the corner, she paused at the sight of the candle adorned cake sitting in the middle of a stainless steel island.

"Happy Birthday Zero!" The trio smiled, turning up the intensity of the lights.

For her part, Zero simply stood shocked, eyes wet with barely contained tears. "Wha—but…" She struggled.

"Didn't think I forgot, did you?" Wraith asked, a low rumble in his voice, despite his fatherly tone.

Letting out a strangled cry, Zero threw herself at Wraith, hugging the man fiercely.

Surprised, Wraith froze for a moment before he replied with a chuckle, "Hey now, no need for that."

"Aww, that's sweet…" Morgan cooed as Wraith returned Zero's embrace.

"Thank you." Zero murmured into Wraith's chest. She had thought that the man didn't care enough to celebrate her birthday. He didn't celebrate her birthday last year, granted he had been in combat at the time. Still, she was glad that he found time to celebrate the occasion.

"Come on, you going to blow out those candles?" He said as he fussed with Zero's hair. It was too long to be considered a buzz cut, but not quite long enough to be considered "traditional" short hair cut. Her hair lost the stubbly texture to it, but was still enticing to run a hand through. Doing this seemed to rouse Zero from her elated tears, spurring her into action.

Wiping her eyes on her sleeve, she sniffled as she turned to her cake. It wasn't very big, but it was special nonetheless. She looked at the eighteen candles arranged around the perimeter of the cake and smiled.

"Bet che' can't get em all in one blow." Morgan teased cheerily.

Zero, more than up for the challenge grinned competitively. Taking a deep breath that puffed out her chest and her cheeks, she attempted to extinguish the candles. Fortunately for her, Zero was able to successfully blow out every candle. With a triumphant grin she looked to Morgan who simply frowned, albeit in a friendly manner.

Wraith chuckled at the exchange, whilst Vi gave a muted "Congratulations".

"Did you make a wish?" He rumbled warmly.

Zero gave an embarrassed, blank look that was a mix of embarrassment and upset. She muttered a terse, yet equally embarrassed "...Crap…"

"Eeeh… don't worry about it." Wraith said in a placating tone. "We got some presents for you, if that'll make you feel better."

That seemed to make the new adult perk up, turning to a small collection of cards and boxes. Drawn to a crimson and black card, she ran her hand over the textured surface before opening the folded cardstock.

 _Happy Birthday Apolline!_ _You've reached quite the milestone, turning 18. I know we didn't have the best of introductions, but I wanted to let you know that you've been an important part of my family._

 _You're old enough to make your own choices now. Enjoy your newfound freedom and responsibilities, and know that I will always be there for you._ _Best wishes,_ _Devin_

Attached was a staggering two hundred thousand credits. Zero, already teary-eyed from the card gagged at the amount of money within the card. As she recovered from the eye bulging amount of money she had to fight back a fresh set of sniffles.

Wraith had never paid Zero for her skills at flying. He figured that she didn't need the money, especially since she really didn't directly contribute to many of the sorties he participated in. However, he felt as if she deserved a better life than this, hence the massive amount of money.

"W-Wraith… what is this?" She asked quietly before giving an almost crazed chuckle. "That's a lot of money…"

"Consider it a headstart." He explained, "I know you had a rough childhood and that you don't like to talk about it, but hopefully this helps make up for some of the shortcomings you're about to face. And before you complain about handouts, it's not. You've earned every one of those credits over the last two years."

"Thanks, Wraith. It… it means a lot to me."

Waiting a considerate moment, before she interrupted the heartfelt atmosphere, Morgan interrupted. "Well my gift may not be as expensive as Wraith's, but it's worth more!" She smiled mischievously.

Vi spoke up, objecting to the contradiction. "That is not logically possible."

"I mean sentimentally you bolt box." Morgan rolled her eyes.

"At least I'm not damaged." Vi joked back, catching the others off guard.

The room fell to anticipatory dead silence before Morgan replied with, "Oooooh, you're gonna get it now…!" Morgan laughed.

Before the situation could escalate, Zero piped up with an impatient, "You had presents for me?"

"Ah, right." Morgan responded, casting one last glare at Vi. "I've got a special present for you." Morgan grinned mischievously. "Three hundred year old whiskey! Bottled last year! My family owns a brewe—"

"No. Absolutely not." Wraith said emphatically, interrupting Morgan's excited explanation.

"She's old enough! This isn't the core." Morgan countered.

"I don't—"

A knock on the door.

"Expecting company?" Morgan asked.

"Not that I know of…" He said, his mood beginning to darken.

"Great. So while you handle that, I'll get some glasses poured!"

"No." Wraith said pointing a finger at Morgan as he walked out of the kitchen. He briskly passed through the living room, grabbing up a Mozambique hand-held energy shotgun from a side table. He checked the power cell held within the cylinder as he ambled ever closer to the door.

All things in order, he stopped behind the door, flicked the safety off and keyed the electric lock systems to disengage. He approached his front door, a camera system displayed what was on the other side of his door. Recognizing the three figures he sighed inwardly and opened the door.

"I take it, this isn't a social visit?" Wraith asked, not bothering to mask his annoyance.

"Would you have seen me if it wasn't?" The scarred woman asked paused as Wraith's face betrayed him with the barest flicker of disappointment. Shaking her head of the astronomical possibility that, that was true, she continued with, "I've got a job offer for you."

"I don't work for the Militia." He said, cutting off her chance to elaborate further.

"Told you." One of the siblings muttered in the background, catching the elbow of the other.

"You won't be working for the Militia." The Lieutenant tried to argue.

"Don't lie to m—"

"Shut up and let me explain myself!" The younger siblings startled with breaths held as their sister snapped.

Wraith's frown deepened as he leveled a glare that would cow the bravest of souls.

Taking a breath to calm herself, the 6-4 Lieutenant continued. "You'll be working for me. Assisting me with my own missions. You'll be my wingman basically."

"I don't take open-ended, ambiguous, or indefinite jobs." He grunted dismissively.

"Fine." She huffed. "Uhh… How about you stick with me for my next five deployments?"

"Sixty thousand credits." Wraith grunted.

The Saei trio recoiled at the staggering price. "S-sixty thou…" one of them stammered.

"That's ridiculous!" A young woman snapped. "How do you even get work!?"

"You get what you pay for." Wraith glared, grip tightening on the Mozambique in his hand. Before he could act further however he was interrupted.

"Wraaaaaith!" A laughed call came from the kitchen. "You should see Zero's face!" More laughter. "The drink is kicking her ass, but the gal is taking it like a bloody champ!"

Wraith let out a sigh that masked a slight growl.

"Am I interrupting something?" The eldest—scarred—Saei asked, failing to completely mask her upset jealousy.

"Yeah, actually, you are." Wraith said shortly.

"Well…" She responded at a loss for words from his blunt and brusque response. "... W… W-we can talk business tomorrow." The Lieutenant said in a clipped response, clearly upset. "Have a... nice night."

Wraith grunted in response, waiting for the trio to step off his porch before he closed the door.

As the three walked away, Aeryn muttered, "Well that was something…" under her breath, low enough that none of her siblings heard her.

"At least he didn't shoot us!" Beckett commented a little too cheerfully, given the sullen and tense atmosphere that seemed to hang around his sisters.

"Shut up, Beckett."


End file.
